THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 


isox  HOWARD 


THE 


AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 


MONTROSE  J.  MOSES 

n 

AUTHOR  OF  **  THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  SOUTH,"  "  HENRIK 
THE   MAN  AND  HIS   PLAYS,"  ETC. 


Mustrateb 


BOSTON 
LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 

1911 


Copyright,  1911, 
BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  &  COMPANY. 

All  rights  reserved 
Published,  October,  1911 


THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS,   CAMBRIDGE,   U.  8.  A. 


TO 

THE  MEMORY  OF 
THREE  AMERICAN  DRAMATISTS 

BRONSON  HOWARD 
JAMES  A.  HERNE 
CLYDE  FITCH 


224442 


viii  PREFACE 

But  research  requires  patience,  and  one  is  brought  sud 
denly  to  a  grim  realization  of  its  slowness.  When  this  book 
was  begun,  A.  M.  Palmer  was  alive;  during  its  initial  period 
I  profited  by  the  unfailing  help  and  encouragement  of  Bron- 
son  Howard,  and  later  I  was  made  to  feel  the  necessity  for 
such  a  book  through  the  splendid  enthusiasm  of  Clyde 
Fitch.  Chapters  written  then  have  had  to  be  altered  be 
cause  these  men  are  dead.  But  they  are  not  forgotten 
even  though  the  literary  critic  fail  to  recognize  them. 

The  American  drama  is  a  fact;  it  has  a  body,  whatever 
the  value  of  its  spirit.  In  its  local  sense,  it  is  a  reflection 
of  local  condition  and  type  characteristics;  in  its  technical 
sense,  it  exhibits  special  mannerisms,  and  shows  itself  sub 
jected  to  special  influences.  The  American  dramatist  has 
evolved  from  certain  social  factors,  and  his  product  —  the 
American  drama  —  has  developed  by  reason  of  theatrical 
economics.  There  are  always  definite  reasons  to  be  found 
for  every  literary  activity.  If  at  one  time  the  American  stage 
was  filled  with  American  types  of  similar  cartoon  value, 
such  was  the  accepted  convention  of  the  time;  if  there  was 
more  French  attitude  than  American  in  the  early  society 
drama,  it  was  because  French  technique  was  being  imitated; 
if  Bronson  Howard  has  a  right  to  the  title  of  Dean  of  the 
American  Drama,  he  must  have  stemmed  a  current  that 
opposed  him;  if  journalism  dominates  our  stage  to-day, 
there  must  be  some  reason  for  the  reportorial  treatment  of 
most  of  our  present  native  drama. 

I  have  tried  to  carry  out  this  plan  in  the  following  pages: 
to  emphasize  the  individual  contributions  to  the  idea  of  an 
American  drama,  to  summarize  the  striking  qualities  of 
dramatists  who  are  original  in  position,  to  enumerate  the 
social  and  economic  causes  affecting  the  theatre,  and  through 
the  theatre  limiting  the  dramatist's  work. 

My  indebtedness  is  great,  largely  measured  by  a  bib- 


PREFACE  ix 

liography  which  I  have  compiled  for  the  benefit  of  the  Ameri 
can  student.  This  bibliography,  with  the  one  appended  to 
my  "  Famous  Actor-Families  of  America, "  in  general  covers 
the  field  of  theatrical  activity  in  this  country. 

In  particular,  I  wish  to  acknowledge  the  courtesy  shown 
me  by  the  library  authorities  of  Columbia  University.  The 
New  York  Public  Library  contains  a  most  valuable  col 
lection  of  material,  which  has  yet  to  be  properly  sorted. 
To  Mrs.  James  A.  Herne,  Professor  Brander  Matthews, 
Mr.  Percy  Mackaye,  and  others,  I  take  this  opportunity 
of  extending  my  thanks  for  their  generous  desire  to  aid  me. 

My  thanks  are  also  due  to  the  Editors  of  The  Book 
News  Monthly,  The  Independent,  The  Bellman,  The  Forum, 
and  The  Theatre  Magazine  for  permission  to  use  certain 
articles  which  I  have  published  from  time  to  time. 

MONTROSE  J.  MOSES. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE vii 

CHAPTER 

I   DRAMA  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE 1 

II   THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY    .        11 

III  THE    TREND    OF    AMERICAN    DRAMA    FROM 

1750  TO  1870 37 

IV  OUR  LITERARY  AND  OUR  CLOSET-DRAMA.    .  59 
V   BRONSON  HOWARD:   DEAN   OF  THE   AMERI 
CAN  DRAMA 73 

VI   JAMES  A.  HERNE  AND  THE  REALISTIC  DRAMA       90 
VII   DAVID   BELASCO  AND  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF 

THE  SWITCHBOARD Ill 

VIII   THE   CASE   OF   PERCY  MACKAYE  AND    His 

FATHER 135 

IX   THE    CARDBOARD    PLAY    AND    THE    WELL- 
MADE   PLAY:    AUGUSTUS  THOMAS  AND 

WILLIAM  GILLETTE 154 

X   CONCERNING  CLYDE  FITCH  AND  THE  LOCAL 

SENSE     . 169 

XI   CONCERNING  MELODRAMA 186 

XII   THE  KINETOSCOPIC  THEATRE 200 

XIII  SHOULD  THE  POETIC  DRAMA  BE  DRAMATIZED     215 

XIV  SUNLIGHT,  MOONLIGHT,  AND  FOOTLIGHT    ,          227 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XV   FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 239 

XVI    A  NEW  OR  A  NATIONAL  THEATRE   ....  264 

XVII   THE  NEED  FOR  A  DRAMATIC  LIBRARY    .    .  277 
XVIII   THE    DISINTEGRATION    AND    REGENERATION 

OF  THE  THEATRE 288 

XIX   L'ENVOIE       303 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 315 

INDEX  327 


LIST   OF   PORTRAITS 

PAGE 
Bronson  Howard Frontispiece 

Edwin  Milton  Royle 13 

Channing  Pollock 16 

William  Vaughn  Moody 24 

Charles  Klein 33 

Richard  Harding  Davis 37 

Augustin  Daly 57 

Rachel  Crothers 83 

James  A.  Herne 92 

David  Belasco 112 

A.  M.  Palmer 117 

Henry  C.  De  Mille 135 

Percy  MacKaye  and  Charles  Rann  Kennedy  .     .     .     .  140 

Steele  MacKaye 144 

Augustus  Thomas 160 

William  Gillette 166 

Clyde  Fitch 170 

Dion  Boucicault 188 

Josephine  Preston  Peabody 217 

Edward  Harrigan 259 

George  Ade 262 

Minnie  Maddern  Fiske 271 

Charles  Hoyt 282 

Rupert  Hughes 313 


THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 


CHAPTER*! 

DRAMA  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE 

WE  are  so  prone  to  pin  our  faith  to  terms,  that  we  are  quite 
in  danger  of  receiving  a  distorted  idea  of  drama  as  art,  and 
of  the  theatre  as  a  social  institution.  It  is  well  to  note  that 
frenzied  drama  has  been  tried  and  found  wanting.  After 
all,  it  is  bad  economics  to  shut  one's  eyes  to  the  character 
of  popular,  average  returns  on  one's  investments.  It  is 
incumbent  upon  us  to  lay  significant  stress  upon  the  moral 
accountability  of  the  theatre  to  the  civic  body  as  a  civic 
institution,  and  of  the  playwright  to  the  community  as  a 
citizen.  But  the  manager  has  a  right  to  expect  some  tangible 
response  from  his  audiences  in  exchange  for  amusement  given 
them.  The  freedom  of  the  theatre  from  the  calculating 
touch  of  commercialism  would  be  only  one  of  the  agents  to 
call  forth  the  best  energies  of  the  citizen-playwright  in 
America. 

The  endowed  institution,  much  less  a  subsidized  theatre, 
would  not  alone  create  the  art  demand,  would  not  alone 
call  forth  the  highest  type  of  communal  expression,  would 
not  alone  establish  the  poet  as  dramatist,  even  though  he 
might  have  his  hand  upon  the  pulse  of  the  people.  There  is 
a  deeper  education  to  be  done  first;  for  in  every  true  move 
ment  which  has  carried  the  world  forward  in  its  progressive 
growth,  the  real  dramatist  has  risen  above  conditions,  and, 
by  seeming  acceptance  of  physical  and  formal  convention, 
has,  in  the  end,  forced  convention  with  him. 


A  ..  ^   ,t  TEE.  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Critics  of  the  theatre  are  prone  to  rush  headlong  into  a 
most  complicated  of  machines,  and  expect  to  change  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  the  whole  social,  economic,  aesthetic,  and 
spiritual  organism  of  the  institution.  At  least  it  were  wiser 
to  take  conditions  as  they  are,  rather  than  to  supplant  them 
with  chimerical  and  untried  theories.  For  everyone  will 
agree  that  in  the  education  of  theatre  audiences,  the  first 
essential  is  to  begin  with  the  audiences;  not  to  close  the 
vaudeville  houses  to  them,  but  to  make  them  challenge  the 
validity  of  their  fragmentary  amusement,  and  to  think  on 
the  possible  enjoyment  of  higher  things.  The  American 
theatre  manager  of  the  present  has  much  on  his  side  of  the 
argument,  when  he  holds  fast  to  certain  types  of  theatrical 
successes,  until  he  is  assured  of  a  different  demand;  until 
he  is  certain  that  his  change  of  bill  will  guarantee  him 
against  loss. 

The  greatest  hope  of  the  theatre  to-day  rests  with  the 
people.  The  first  expressions  of  communal  art  came  from 
the  people;  the  Greek  drama  developed  from  a  national 
sentiment  and  from  a  national  religious  custom.  The  modern 
stage  came  into  existence  through  a  church  necessity  and  by 
way  of  vulgar  tongue  and  guild  support.  So  we  see  that, 
institutionally,  the  art  of  representing  life  has  always  been 
called  into  use  for  social  purposes.  However  much  it  has 
been  elaborated  from  the  old  vocero  or  tribal  songs  of  grief, 
and  from  the  tropes  of  the  church  service;  however  much  it 
has  departed  from  the  dithyrambic  chorus,  it  has  made  its 
appeal  to  the  crowd.  The  theatre  that  is  cut  aloof  from  the 
crowd,  if  it  is  not  altogether  impossible,  is  at  least  so  ansemic 
that  its  energies  are  squandered  for  want  of  the  red  blood 
of  popular  appreciation.  The  whole  art  value  of  drama  is 
at  first  determined  by  the  extent  of  its  instant  appeal  to  a 
crowd;  and  there  are  as  many  types  of  drama  as  there  are 
broad  communal  appeals. 


DRAMA  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  3 

The  mistaken  idea  has  long  been  held  that  the  play  is  a 
thing  governed  wholly  by  the  caprice  of  the  dramatist. 
The  theatre  is  always  close  to  life,  and  exists  by  reason  of 
communal  sanction.  Even  artificial  comedy  grew  out  of 
the  prevalence  of  artificial  manner.  Dramatic  form  has  in 
turn  been  moulded  to  receive  the  content,  and  has  been 
changed  as  the  content  was  changed;  this  is  best  seen  in  a 
comparison  of  "(Edipus"  with  Ibsen's  "Ghosts."  The 
dramatic  treatment  of  the  mysteries  of  life,  as  they  react 
upon  the  individual,  has  been  modified  in  accordance  with 
the  highest  individual  action  toward  those  very  mysteries. 
Hence  the  progress  from  the  Greek  idea  of  Fate,  to  the  meta 
physical  concern  for  the  individual  soul,  to  the  modern  con 
ception  of  heredity  —  almost  as  inexorable  as  Fate  —  and 
finally  to  the  collectivist  concern  for  social  regeneration, 
which  seems  to  be  the  color  of  American  drama. 

It  makes  no  difference  how  you  approach  the  drama  — 
whether  from  its  physical,  its  technical,  or  its  economic 
side  —  the  crowd  is  always  concerned,  and  very  largely 
determines,  through  public  opinion,  the  dramatist's  ten 
dency,  even  as  he,  if  he  be  big  enough,  reinforces  or 
determines  the  crowd's  cast  of  thought. 

In  the  opening  pages  of  his  book  on  "Social  Forces  in 
German  Literature,"  Professor  Kuno  Francke  writes: 

"The  fundamental  conception  which  underlies  the  fol 
lowing  account  ...  is  that  of  a  continued  struggle  between 
individualistic  and  collectivistic  tendencies,  between  man 
and  society,  between  personality  and  tradition,  between 
liberty  and  unity,  between  cosmopolitanism  and  nationality 
—  a  struggle  which  may  be  said  to  be  the  prime  motive 
power  of  all  human  progress." 

Undoubtedly,  from  such  a  conflict  we  are  certain  of  obtain 
ing  a  moving  literature  as  well  as  a  contemplative  one. 
Through  it,  there  is  the  dramatic  impulse,  the  theatrical 


4  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

clash,  the  life  force  —  on  the  one  hand  seeing  intensely,  on 
the  other  dreaming  truly;  and  who  knows  but  the  time  is 
now  at  hand  in  America  when  this  social  impulse  shall  again 
lead  to  our  prophesying  boldly? 

In  all  that  pertains  to  the  greatest  literature,  dramatic  or 
otherwise,  the  one  tremendous  law  of  life  is  that  it  must  flow 
through  us,  purging  the  soul  of  its  impurities,  even  though 
in  doing  so  it  deal  with  the  impure,  for  the  purpose  of 
correcting  evil.  Modern  social  drama,  as  represented  by 
Ibsen,  Hauptmann,  and  Sudermann,  with  their  less  inevitable 
follower,  Pinero,  is  full  of  such  atmosphere. 

Let  it  be  granted,  before  the  argument  as  to  social  forces 
is  stated,  that  drama  is  something  to  be  played  before 
people,  and  hence  is  something  to  move  people.  This  is  one 
of  its  essential  characteristics,  one  of  its  chief  marks  of  dis 
tinction  in  comparison  with  other  species  of  forceful  litera 
ture.  We  also  grant,  echoing  Freytag,  Price,  and  others, 
who  in  turn  but  faintly  echo  Aristotle,  that  drama  is  reflec 
tive  of  life,  and  is  necessarily  influenced  by  the  intellectual, 
social,  and  economic  environment  of  the  dramatist,  even 
though  the  subject-matter  be  foreign  to  the  time  in  which 
the  dramatist  lived.  Throughout  Shakespeare,  whether  he 
be  dealing  with  the  Ca3sars,  with  the  Capulets,  or  with  the 
Danes,  the  Elizabethan  is  always  nigh.  No  man  in  any  walk 
of  life  may  escape  his  age.  Even  the  iconoclasts  are  in 
advance  of  theirs  as  a  reaction  against  it;  or  as  Emerson 
claims,  every  social  reform  was  once  a  private  opinion. 

Again,  it  is  wise  to  grant  in  drama  as  in  life  that  conflict 
means  clash  of  will.  The  heroic  marionettes  interpret  this 
as  a  clash  of  physical  bodies,  due  to  unbridled  physical 
passion  outwardly  made  manifest.  The  humanistic  drama 
regards  it  in  a  deeper,  a  more  intensive  sense.  This  clash 
involves  philosophical  distinction,  and  is  nowhere  better 
exemplified  than  in  the  progress  of  Maeterlinck,  whose  con- 


DRAMA  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  5 

ception  of  Destiny  has  altered  to  accord  with  his  later  belief 
that  human  will  may  sometimes  control  the  working  of 
Fate.  We  now  recognize  nothing  as  wholly  inevitable  that 
comes  from  our  own  life-force.  Destiny  has  changed  into  a 
Christian  principle  that  as  we  sow,  so  shall  we  reap.  "We 
are  masters  of  our  Fate/'  sings  Henley.  We  destroy  only 
that  we  may  build  better  upon  our  mistake,  or,  as  Shaw 
says:  "Every  step  in  morals  is  made  by  challenging  the 
validity  of  the  existing  conception  of  perfect  propriety  in 
conduct." 

The  drama,  therefore,  depends  upon  social  support;  it 
has  to  talk  of  life  in  terms  of  life,  and  it  has  to  appeal  to 
life  in  matters  with  which  life  is  concerned.  Even  before 
nationality  in  drama  added  characteristics  which  distin 
guished  the  British  from  the  French  or  Germans,  and  differ 
entiated  the  Americans  as  separate,  even  though  a  part  of 
the  English,  the  drama  echoed  the  fundamental  principles 
of  life,  and  dealt  specifically  with  the  vital  energy  which 
surged  through  man's  blood. 

Of  course,  even  to-day,  the  vital  literature  at  its  most 
vital  moments  transcends  nationality,  though  not  rejecting 
it.  Ibsen  in  Scandinavia,  Hauptmann  and  Sudermann  in 
Germany,  Tolstoy  in  Russia,  Shaw  in  England,  are  all  swept 
by  the  same  social  movement  which  tends  toward  partial 
social  solution,  even  though  the  methods  of  using  it  are 
surprisingly  uncomfortable  for  those  of  us  who  are  willing, 
as  Vockerat  says  in  Hauptmann's  "Lonely  Lives,"  to 
be  "the  drones  in  the  hive."  To  the  big  dramatist,  to  the 
true  citizen,  the  happy  ending  in  drama  is  one  that  satisfies 
only  when  it  cleanses  and  leaves  the  soul  in  the  light  of 
truth. 

The  drama  as  a  social  force  —  apart  from  its  primary 
object  to  have  and  to  hold  the  interest  of  a  crowd  through 
the  essential  factor  of  its  story  —  has  resulted  in  a  species 


6  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

of  play  which,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  has  been  designated 
"the  social  drama/'  It  is  really  a  drama  of  condition,  social 
or  economic.  All  critics  recognize  it  as  a  definite  species: 
Shaw  in  his  prefaces,  Henry  Arthur  Jones,  Walkley,  W.  P. 
Eaton,  and  Clayton  Hamilton  distinguish  it  as  a  form  in 
which  the  message  is  carried  direct;  in  which  conviction  is 
being  hurled  at  the  people,  regardless  of  sensibilities  and 
regardless  of  whether  the  immediate  crowd  heed  or  not. 
But  the  dramatist  who  disregards  the  crowd  is  no  real  man 
of  the  theatre;  he  will  find  it  difficult  to  have  his  philosophy 
—  social,  economic,  or  spiritual  —  accepted  across  the  foot 
lights.  And  truly,  as  Mr.  Hamilton  has  stated  in  his  sug 
gestive  book  on  "The  Theory  of  the  Theatre,"  the  dramatist 
under  these  conditions  might  as  well  be  a  novelist;  he  would 
be  heeded  much  more  readily.  Drama  will  not  abide  long 
exposition,  such  as  one  finds  in  the  plays  of  Paul  Bourget 
and  in  the  last  act  of  Augustus  Thomas's  "  As  a  Man  Thinks." 

We  grant,  therefore,  that  no  man  may  escape  his  time, 
and  least  so  the  man  of  the  theatre;  the  current  of  life 
carries  him  with  it.  After  summarizing  Sudermann's  "Hei- 
mat,"  and  calling  it  a  "literary  thundercloud,"  Professor 
Francke  describes  modern  Germany  in  this  manner: 

"On  the  one  hand,  Bismarck,  whether  in  office  or  out;  on 
the  other,  Bebel.  On  the  one  hand,  the  ruling  minority, 
wonderfully  organized,  full  of  intellectual  and  moral  vigor, 
proud,  honest,  loyal,  patriotic  but  hemmed  in  by  prejudice, 
and  devoid  of  larger  sympathies;  on  the  other,  the  millions 
of  the  majority,  equally  well  organized,  influential  as  a 
political  body,  but  socially  held  down,  restless,  rebellious, 
inspired  with  the  vague  idea  of  a  broader  and  fuller  human 
ity.  On  the  one  hand,  a  past  secure  in  glorious  achievements; 
on  the  other,  a  future  teeming  with  extravagant  hopes.  On 
the  one  hand,  service;  on  the  other,  personality.  On  the 
one  hand,  an  almost  religious  belief  in  the  sacredness  of  hered- 


DRAMA  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  7 

itary  sovereignty;  on  the  other,  an  equally  fervent  zeal  for 
the  emancipation  of  all,  both  conservatives  and  radicals, 
both  monarchists  and  social  democrats,  inevitably  drifting 
toward  the  same  final  goal  of  a  new  corporate  consciousness, 
which  shall  embrace  both  authority  and  freedom." 

Now,  this  summary  includes  the  whole  significance  of 
social  forces,  though  it  only  examines  the  political  and  his 
torical  aspects  of  the  subject.  There  is  no  doubt  that  drama 
also  finds  itself  reflecting  the  same  aspects,  but  more  is 
involved  in  the  play  by  the  very  essence  of  its  nature.  His 
tory,  philosophy,  sociology,  and  economics  deal  with  the 
effects  of  social,  economic,  historical,  and  philosophical 
action.  Drama  deals  directly  with  those  forces  dominantly 
in  action;  it  designates  this  person  as  against  that,  this  con 
dition  as  against  that.  One  principle  opposed  to  another 
results  only  in  philosophical  speculation;  it  is  neither  life  nor 
drama. 

Condition,  after  all,  has  a  double  effect.  It  not  only  colors 
the  play  by  keeping  the  playwright  within  the  pale  of  vital 
interests,  but  it  likewise  prompts  the  dramatist  to  incor 
porate  therein  that  part  of  himself  which  is  in  rebellion 
against  existing  condition.  He  exerts  his  art  for  three 
reasons:  to  express  himself,  either  inspirationally  or  con 
sciously;  to  convince  others  of  the  presence  of  social  evil 
in  a  community,  showing  them  at  the  same  time  the  means 
of  social  betterment;  and  finally,  to  develop  character  in 
relation  to  the  conditions  of  which  he  treats.  It  is  always 
necessary  to  keep  drama  close  to  life,  —  a  drama  which  not 
only  draws  from  life,  but  which  in  turn  reacts  on  life  itself. 

This  has  made  the  writer  of  social  drama  intense,  —  per 
haps  more  absorbed  than  he  should  be  in  the  beclouded 
atmosphere  which  he  strives  to  clear.  The  time  has  come 
when  we  are  beginning  to  see  that  the  social  dramatist's 
vision  has  been  too  persistent  in  its  view  of  evil.  Life  is  not 


8  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

one  continual  shady  past,  and  Eugene  Walter's  "  The  Easiest 
Way,"  poignant  in  its  theme,  is  neither  healthy  in  its  solution 
nor  agreeable  in  its  situations.  Everyone  will  grant  that 
even  Ibsen,  toward  the  close  of  his  career,  came  to  see  where 
in  he  had  robbed  himself  of  the  sweetness  of  life  by  the  per 
sistent  dwelling  upon  the  canker-worm;  he  even  began  to 
sneer  at  himself  after  having  burned  his  soul  with  the  red- 
hot  terror  of  "Ghosts."  The  idealist  in  "The  Wild  Duck," 
who  wrecks  the  conventional  ideal  happiness  of  others,  is 
only  the  cartoon  of  himself.  Yet  what  larger  social  force  in 
modern  drama  than  Ibsen  —  revolutionizing  technique  and 
showing  how  to  vitalize  the  commonplace  incidents  of  life! 
His  social  significance  has  been  individual  as  well  as  com 
munal;  and,  curiously,  though  he  disclaimed  any  effort  on 
his  part  to  be  a  champion  of  women,  his  contemplation  was 
fixed  on  the  feminine  half  of  society  which  needed  to  be 
free  in  order  that  civic  life,  and  all  civic  institutions  pledged 
to  the  perpetuation  of  civic  life,  might  be  free.  This  is  the 
essential  moral  purpose  of  all  social  drama. 

There  are  other  ways  of  remedying  society  than  by  treat 
ing  solely  of  conditions  as  they  are.  The  realist  has  done 
a  deal  of  good  by  his  so-called  "muck-raking,"  but  there  is 
likewise  a  necessary  benefit  to  be  conferred  by  "star-gazing." 
Let  us  grant  that  only  by  respecting  the  rights  of  others  will 
a  man  respect  himself.  If  he  cannot  regard  the  laws  of 
cities,  let  him  have  a  care  for  the  laws  of  nature.  If  he 
cannot  be  the  frock-coat  citizen  —  and  assuredly  the  pillars 
of  society  need  reinforcing  some  time  —  let  him  at  least 
be  a  man,  not  dependent  on  the  dictates  of  his  passion  only. 

Condition  is  simply  the  back-drop  of  life;  man's  soul  and 
woman's  soul  are  the  prime  considerations.  The  horizon 
may  be  dimmed  by  factory  smoke,  but  while  the  "muck- 
raker"  is  attempting  to  clear  the  atmosphere  of  condition, 
there  is  no  need  to  allow  the  soul  to  be  smirched  with  black. 


DRAMA  AS  A  SOCIAL  FORCE  9 

And  when  we  speak  of  the  horrors  of  tenement  condition 
in  America,  there  is  likewise  another  picture  of  epic  breadth 
we  may  hold  in  mind  —  the  vast  wheat  fields  of  the  West 
under  the  open  sky  calling  for  labor,  which  either  does  not 
or  will  not  hear.  We  can  draw  from  American  life  the  feel 
ing  that,  however  economically  oppressed,  in  truth  we  are 
masters  of  our  fate. 

As  a  social  force,  drama  necessarily  must  be  in  touch  with 
the  sympathies  of  those  with  whom  it  comes  in  closest  con 
tact.  The  foreigner  who  brings  to  America  a  French  play 
wholly  concerned  with  the  problems  of  family  life  as  the 
Gallic  spirit  conceives  it,  will  find  the  American  superficially 
attracted.  There  must  be  a  touch  of  sympathy  with  condi 
tion  in  drama,  as  well  as  with  human  passion.  We  found 
"Les  Affaires  sont  les  Affaires"  ("Business  is  Business") 
of  poignant  interest  because  its  business  strain  was  in  accord 
with  Wall  Street.  Londoners  could  find  nothing  in  the 
problem  of  "The  Lion  and  the  Mouse"  —  aside  from  its 
faulty  logic  —  for  the  simple  reason  that  to  British  audiences 
the  Standard  Oil  history  is  simply  a  history  and  not  a  condi 
tion  confronting  the  Empire. 

In  this  consideration  of  social  forces  —  and  no  playwright 
may  disregard  them  —  there  are  certain  distinguishing 
features  of  American  life  which  may  some  day  find  unified 
expression  in  a  native  theatre.  We  are  being  affected  by 
European  drama  to  the  extent  that  we  are  learning  to  make 
use  of  the  deep  and  vital  problems  of  human  nature,  and  to 
exalt  them  above  the  mere  effectiveness  of  situation;  we  are 
being  taught  that  there  are  intimate  social  relations  which  we 
are  too  prone  to  take  for  granted  without  determining  for 
ourselves  the  exact  foundations  on  which  they  are  based;  we 
are  learning  technique  from  the  European  writers  of  social 
plays,  and  need  not  be  ashamed  of  the  well-made  dramas 
by  Augustus  Thomas  and  William  Gillette.  Finally,  we  are 


10  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

beginning  to  see  that  the  world-movement  is  touching  our 
own  shores,  and  is  demanding  of  us  the  solution  of  problems 
much  the  same  as  those  confronting  every  nation  of  the 
earth.  What  we,  as  a  civic  body,  may  say  is  this:  Let  us 
solve  the  problems  according  to  our  national  strength,  and 
according  to  the  moral  point  of  view  upon  which  we  have 
agreed  to  live  as  a  nation. 

The  call  of  revolt  in  drama  is  not  anarchy,  and  we  in 
America  have  not  quite  realized  its  meaning.  But  we  are 
intellectually  alive  to  its  presence.  And  in  order  to  gain 
strength  we  must  feel  in  the  soil,  the  common  clay,  for  the 
vital  force  which  has  yielded  us  more  grain  than  our  labor 
is  able  to  garner,  but  which  has  not  yet  yielded  us  a  full 
harvest  of  art  and  idealism.  What  now  has  to  be  determined 
by  our  American  dramatist  is :  how  may  he  so  combine  what 
is  being  learned  from  Ibsen  on  the  one  hand,  and  from 
Maeterlinck  on  the  other,  as  to  create  out  of  the  workman, 
the  plowman,  the  laborer  in  the  field,  the  artisan,  a  poet  as 
well  as  an  ordinary  man? 

Yet  we  need  not  hesitate,  for  we  perforce  must  seek  in 
condition,  in  the  tang  of  our  soil,  for  American  drama.  It 
is  useless  to  think  that  we  may  transplant  something  foreign 
to  our  natures,  and  that  it  will  flourish.  We  must  meet 
life  in  our  own  way,  and  not  have  it  met  for  us  by  others 
in  their  foreign  way.  Still,  the  value  of  social  drama  lies  in 
the  impulse  it  gives  to  our  dramatists  to  depend  on  other 
than  newspaper  knowledge  for,  condition  and  for  human 
nature.  Social  forces  lie  deep;  they  are  not  on  the  surface; 
they  are  the  true  history  of  any  movement.  Hence,  it  is 
not  cleverness,  but  understanding,  they  require  for  their 
full  and  ample  explanation. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   ESSENTIALS  OF  AN   AMERICAN   PLAY 


WE  hear  much  about  the  American  dramatist;  we  are  al 
ways  denying  him,  and  at  the  next  turn  we  are  discovering 
him.  Some  critics  proclaimed  with  much  assurance  that 
William  Vaughn  Moody  had  reached  the  goal  in  "The 
Great  Divide,"  but  it  was  only  notable  in  its  suggestion  of 
largeness;  some  others,  lost  in  the  admiration  of  literary 
values,  declare  that  Percy  Mackaye's  "  Sappho  and  Phaon " 
was  great  drama  and  that  his  "Mater"  adequately  discussed 
the  problems  of  democracy.  But  these  declarations  are 
futile,  and  have  only  relative  significance.  Either  a  dram 
atist  has,  or  he  has  not,  written  a  play  with  some  telling 
substance  in  it.  That  is  the  primary  test  of  the  theatre  — 
the  test  that  knows  no  nationality. 

Henry  Arthur  Jones  is  spoken  of  as  an  English  dramatist 
—  first,  because  that  language  is  his  vehicle  of  expression. 
Bronson  Howard,  Clyde  Fitch,  and  David  Belasco  likewise 
use  this  medium  —  and  in  such  a  sense  American  drama 
is  but  a  subdivision  of  the  English  drama.  However,  Mr. 
Jones  is  a  British  dramatist  because  of  something  funda 
mentally  deeper.  Spiritually,  mentally,  socially,  he  has 
been  subject  to  national  characteristics,  he  has  been  trained 
in  an  English  environment,  he  has  been  educated  in  English 
institutions.  It  would  have  been  as  impossible  for  him  to 
conceive  the  theme  of  "The  Lion  and  the  Mouse,"  as  it 


12  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

would  have  been  for  Charles  Klein  to  have  written  it  on  his 
first  arrival  in  America. 

A  dramatist's  point  of  view  must  be  shaped  by  the  body 
politic  in  which  he  lives.  The  interests  and  local  distinctions 
of  any  nationality  are  reflected  in  its  literature,  and  the  es 
sentials  of  an  American  play  should  reflect  the  essentials 
of  American  life  —  not  in  the  philosophic  sense,  but  in  the 
broader  and  more  human  sense. 

We  are  free  in  our  use  of  the  term,  "American  drama;" 
we  are  even  freer  in  our  hasty  assertions  that  no  distinctively 
American  drama  exists;  and,  what  is  more  to  the  point,  we 
find  it  difficult  to  define  what  is  exactly  the  dominant  note 
that  stamps  a  play  as  American.  Let  us  attempt  to  define, 
in  order,  the  two  terms  in  this  cant  phrase,  "American 
drama." 

Consult  the  American  dramatists  of  all  grades  of  distinction, 
and  their  opinions  scarcely  vary.  Bronson  Howard,  the 
Dean,  once  said :  "  By  the  term  I  should  mean  any  play  that 
is  written  by  an  American,  or  in  America  by  a  foreign  resi 
dent,  that  is  produced  here,  and  that  deals  with  any  subject  — 
using  America  in  the  sense  of  the  United  States.  The  phrase, 
American  drama,  if  extended  to  a  full  description,  would  be 
'Plays  written  in  the  United  States,  chiefly  in  the  English 
language/"  As  to  general  characteristics,  Mr.  Howard 
recognized  none  as  distinctive  of  this  country  alone,  thereby 
inferring  that  humanity  is  universal,  whether  garbed  in  a 
cowpuncher's  outfit  or  in  a  king's  uniform.  But  Hamlin 
Garland's  claim  that  it  is  locality  which  marks  nations, 
and  Bret  Harte's  exemplification  of  that  fact,  lead  one  to 
agree  with  the  terseness  of  Augustus  Thomas'  opinion  that 
the  American  drama  is  written  by  Americans  upon  American 
subjects,  and  is  stamped  with  peculiar  humor  and  distinct 
character-drawing.  Such  requisites  even  give  rise  to  sec 
tional  literature  of  a  kind  that  distinguishes  W.  D.  Howells 


EDWIN  MILTON,  ROYLE 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY   13 

from  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  or  Mary  E.  Wilkins-Freeman 
from  Charles  Egbert  Craddock.  Elsewhere  Mr.  Thomas 
has  asserted,  "  There  are  very  few  good  lines  in  a  play  that 
go  to  waste,  and  with  their  general  acceptance  as  good,  there 
is  little  disposition  to  regard  the  nationality  of  the  author. 
A  good  line  by  anybody  secures  immediate  recognition  by 
any  audience  of  understanding."  Herein,  however,  we 
detect  an  element  of  weakness  in  Augustus  Thomas,  as  a 
playwright,  for  in  many  of  his  plays  on  the  order  of  "De 
Lancy,"  "Mrs.  Leffingwell's  Boots,"  and  "The  Other  Girl," 
wit  and  sharp  lines  predominate  in  lieu  of  any  strong  idea. 

Harry  B.  Smith,  writer  of  many  comic  opera  librettos, 
places  rigorous  requirement  upon  American  drama.  "  I  do 
not  think  we  have  an  American  drama,"  he  writes,  "in  the 
sense  that  there  is  a  French  drama  or  an  English  drama. 
Our  plays  are  clever,  run  a  season  or  two,  and  then  are 
relegated  to  the  top  shelf.  There  will  be  no  American  drama 
until  plays  are  written  that  endure,  and  take  their  place  in 
the  body  of  literature." 

It  is  the  "square  deal"  that  American  audiences  mostly 
seek,  such  a  spirit  as  made  Milton  Royle's  "The  Squaw 
Man"  a  popular  success.  The  large  heart  rather  than  the 
subtle  one,  the  direct  deed  rather  than  the  evasive  thought, 
and  the  terse  answer  rather  than  the  veiled  meaning,  compel 
sympathetic  interest  in  an  American  crowd.  Most  of  our 
dramatists  have  learned  this  directness  through  newspaper 
work.  Howard,  Thomas,  and  Ade  began  as  reporters. 

This  quality  of  "  uplift, "  therefore,  is  synonymous  with  the 
word  "American."  To  be  an  American  means  to  have  an 
indisputable  right  to  rise  above  environment.  Democracy 
knows  but  one  level,  and  that  is  the  equity  of  justice;  de 
mocracy  gives  out  the  great  privilege  of  drawing  no  dis 
tinctions  and  of  raising  no  barriers,  save  those  that  are  made 
by  differences  of  character.  The  American  is  placed  upon 


14  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

the  highroad  of  life,  and  there  comes  to  him,  in  the  face  of 
Fate,  the  American  note:  "It  Js  up  to  you."  There  it  is  in 
a  nutshell,  and  in  the  popular  language.  This  is  the  dis 
tinctive  character  of  the  literature  we  are  seeking  and  of  the 
drama  which  we  hope  to  have. 

The  American  is  clean  and  healthy;  to  him  the  home 
means  a  great  deal.  His  temper  is  quick  to  renounce  aban 
don,  despite  all  we  hear  of  the  divorce  courts  at  Reno;  his 
directness  is  not  sympathetic  toward  what  the  faddist  is 
pleased  to  call  subtlety.  The  dominant  feature  of  American 
character  is  action;  hence  it  must  be  the  essential  requisite 
of  American,  as  it  is  of  all,  drama. 

The  indisputable  right  to  rise  above  environment  —  is 
that  our  fundamental  note?  It  excludes  the  idea  of  tragedy 
as  the  Greeks  conceived  it,  and  indeed  we  are  not  deeply 
moved  by  the  inevitable  of  Sophocles.  Someone  has  written: 

"In  defeat,  the  American  sows  the  seeds  of  victory;  .  .  . 
for  there  is  no  event,  not  the  worst,  but  God  is  of  and  in  it. 
And  for  (Edipus  in  his  remorse,  and  Oswald  in  his  imbecility, 
there  is  infinite  certainty  of  good.  .  .  .  Paradoxical  as  it  is, 
the  fact  is  clear  that,  in  the  heart  of  a  Georgia  mob,  in  Whit- 
tier's  verse,  and  in  the  cowpuncher's  respect  for  a  woman, 
there  lives  the  same  spirit  whose  largeness  and  delicacy, 
whose  tenderness  and  unconquerable  daring,  made  American 
life  the  most  vital  in  the  world." 

We  applaud  this  nobleness  of  attitude,  wheresoever  it  is 
to  be  found ;  we  claim  it  as  our  own.  There  is  an  epic  strength 
to  the  fight  —  a  force  that  will  come,  it  may  be,  with  the  sweep 
of  melodrama,  but  healthfully  active.  In  "The  Virginian," 
Owen  Wister  says: 

"  All  America  is  divided  into  two  classes  —  the  quality 
and  the  equality.  The  latter  will  always  recognize  the  for 
mer  when  mistaken  for  it.  Both  will  be  with  us  until  our 
women  bear  nothing  but  kings. 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY    15 

"It  was  through  the  Declaration  of  Independence  that 
we  Americans  acknowledged  the  eternal  inequality  of  man, 
for  we  abolished  a  cut-and-dried  aristocracy.  We  had  seen 
little  men  artificially  held  up  in  high  places,  and  great  men 
artifically  held  down  in  low  places,  and  our  own  justice- 
loving  hearts  abhorred  this  violence  to  human  nature.  There 
fore  we  decreed  that  every  man  should  thenceforth  have 
equal  liberty  to  find  his  own  level.  By  this  very  decree 
we  acknowledged  and  gave  freedom  to  true  aristocracy, 
saying  'Let  the  best  man  win,  whoever  he  is.'  Let  the 
best  man  win!  That  is  America's  word.  That  is  true 
democracy." 

The  strength  of  our  American  life  lies  in  a  marked  com 
panionship  of  the  American  people.  We  like  evidences  of 
this  fact  in  our  books;  we  applaud  it  on  our  stage.  This 
is  why  "The  Virginian,"  poor  as  it  was  in  its  dramatized 
form,  drew,  for  reason  of  its  quiet  dignity  of  conception, 
its  quick  decision,  and  its  elemental  passion. 

Speaking  of  his  hero  and  heroine  in  "  The  Gentleman  from 
Indiana,"  which  failed  in  its  dramatization,  Booth  Tarking- 
ton  writes:  "The  genius  of  the  American  is  adaptability, 
and  both  were  sprung  from  pioneers  whose  mean  life  de 
pended  on  that  quality."  But  in  this  momentary  accept 
ance  of  inherited  environment  lies  the  infinite  source  of 
action.  Later  on  in  the  na\*ative,  there  runs  through  the 
hero's  mind  a  definition  of  success:  "To  accept  the  worst 
that  Fate  can  deal,  and  to  wring  courage  from  it  instead  of 
despair."  This  is  the  dominant  note  in  our  American  life, 
and  we  seek  it  in  our  drama. 

There  is  a  speech  in  "  Strongheart,"  a  sincere  and  vigorous, 
if  not  a  vital,  play  by  William  C.  DeMille,  where  an  Indian 
has  to  forsake  his  love  of  a  white  girl,  because  he  is  a  red 
man;  yet  in  his  strength  of  sentiment  he  claims  his  infinite 
right  as  a  man.  "You  have  taken  the  land  of  my  fathers," 


16  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

he  cries,  "  yet  when  I  live  by  your  laws,  you  will  not  call  me 
brother.  I  am  the  son  of  a  chief.  In  what  way  am  I  not 
your  equal?  You  would  take  from  me  my  pride  and  my 
love.  Do  you  think  you  can  take  these  without  a  struggle? 
.  .  .  You  called  me  from  among  my  mountains  to  be  one  of 
you.  I  was  happy  there.  You  showed  me  the  great  life 
beyond  and  now  you  bid  me  keep  back!  You  tell  me  that  I 
may  not  share  it,  but  must  stand  outside,  because  I  am  an 
Indian.  No,  —  I  will  not  do  it." 

Then  in  the  end,  Billy,  the  typical  American  college  boy, 
sees  Strongheart  alone  in  his  grief  and  goes  to  him.  This 
dialogue  follows: 

Billy:  What 's  up  between  you  and  the  boys? 

Strong.:  The  prejudice  of  centuries. 

Billy:   Is  that  straight? 

Strong.:  Yes. 

Billy:  Then  I  'm  ashamed  of  my  whole  race,  and  I  '11  go  and 
tell  'em  so. 

An  audience  applauds  such  unstinted  generosity;  it  has  a 
laugh  of  jubilation  in  it;  it  gives  a  reportorial  comment,  and 
an  incisive,  spontaneous,  youthful  judgment.  It  comes 
from  a  good  heart,  and  is  the  verdict  of  man  for  man. 

The  indisputable  right  to  rise  above  environment  —  here 
is  the  source  for  large  action,  and  it  demands,  in  technique, 
a  quick  grasp  of  essentials. 

"  I  'm  a  business  man,  Miss  Dearborn,"  explains  Curtis 
Jadwin  in  Channing  Pollock's  dramatization  of  Frank 
Norris's  "The  Pit."  "It  does  n't  take  me  long  to  discover 
what  I  want,  and,  when  I  find  that  thing,  I  generally  get 
it.  I  want  you  to  marry  me." 

This  is  not  our  customary  way  of  showing  sentiment, 
but  there  is  an  activity  in  it  typical  of  American  life.  It 
reveals  a  defiance  of  petty  convention  and  of  cloaked  mean 
ing.  Our  problem  has  largely  been  in  the  direction  of  stress 


CIIANXING  POLLOCK 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY    17 

and  strain.  Yet  Jadwin,  the  typical  business  speculator  on 
Wall  Street,  is  made  to  exclaim: 

"Oh,  it's  not  the  money,  Laura;  it  never  was.  It  was 
the  excitement.  I  had  to  do  something.  I  could  n't  sit 
around  and  twiddle  my  thumbs.  I  don't  believe  in  lounging 
around  clubs,  or  playing  the  race,  or  murdering  game  birds, 
or  running  some  poor,  helpless  fox  to  death." 

Here  one  detects  an  essential  contrast  between  English 
and  American  life.  We  have  no  recognized  type  of  the  gay 
Lord  Quex  class;  we  do  not  believe  in  the  decadence  that 
grows  from  worse  to  worse.  Because  for  two  generations  a 
man's  ancestors  may  not  have  been  all  that  they  should 
have  been,  the  present  holds  an  infinity  of  reward  in  store 
for  him  who  has  the  strength  to  fight  character,  tradition, 
or  condition,  in  the  light  of  truth.  It  is  ever  the  cry  of  energy, 
and  the  gleam  of  hope  in  a  nature  never  beyond  the  point 
of  redemption. 

In  Richard  Harding  Davis's  "Soldiers  of  Fortune"  —  a 
success  as  far  as  popular  dramatization  was  concerned  — 
Clay,  the  hero,  says  to  the  society  Langham  girl,  who  has 
taunted  him  with  being  content  to  labor: 

"  No,  ...  I  don't  amount  to  much,  but,  my  God !  .  .  . 
when  you  think  what  I  was.  ...  If  I  wished  it,  I  could 
drop  this  active  work  to-morrow,  and  continue  as  an  ad 
viser  —  as  an  expert  —  but  I  like  the  active  part  better. 
I  like  doing  things  myself.  ...  It 's  better  to  bind  a  laurel  to 
the  plow  than  to  call  yourself  hard  names." 

The  continental  importations  that  come  to  us  have  nothing 
of  this  ethical  ring  to  tnem;  they  are  teaching  us  the  possi 
bilities  that  enter  life,  spiritually,  socially,  and  economically; 
they  are  warning  us,  by  their  realistic  discussion,  against 
the  part  of  life  that  flaunts  degradation.  That  book  is  liked 
the  best  in  America,  that  play  is  applauded  the  most,  which 
gives  a  human  soul  the  right  of  way  to  find  its  own  salvation. 


18  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

The  American  tragedy  is  one  of  incompetence,  —  a  lack  of 
individual  character,  and  not  of  constitutional  weakness 
or  of  national  depravity. 


n         , 

There  is  more  than  the  mere  defining  of  American  drama 
as  something  written  by  a  native  or  a  foreigner,  resident  in 
America.  There  is  even  something  more  than  the  fact  that 
we  are  moved  and  prompted  by  events  that  confront  us  in 
our  social,  political,  industrial,  and  commercial  relations. 
Though  immediate  events  may  not  be  permanent,  they  are 
at  least  significant,  and  drama  should  always  deal  with  sig 
nificant  moments,  motives,  or  situations.  The  stage  is 
denied  the  right  of  emphasizing  the  existence  of  little  mo 
ments.  Ibsen  may  seem  to  have  done  this,  but  his  dramas 
usually  start  at  high  speed,  and  advance  by  compressed 
thought  and  essential  dialogue. 

To  define  American  drama,  it  is  as  paramount  that  we 
understand  the  essentials  of  drama  in  general,  as  that  we 
gauge  the  meaning  of  the  word  "American."  History  would 
justify  our  differentiating  drama  from  the  mass  of  literature 
by  the  very  fact  that  the  stage  is  the  ultimate  means  by 
which  the  dramatic  writer  intends  to  reach  his  public.  I  am 
inclined  to  believe  that  drama  is  emphasized  as  a  special 
branch  of  literature  primarily  because  the  story  is  to  be  shown 
in  the  active  concrete,  rather  than  told  in  the  passive  or 
static  —  and  that  of  necessity  the  word  drama  carries  with 
it  the  ideas  and  considerations  of  dramatist,  actor,  audience, 
and  stage. 

Dramatic  form  does  not  always  constitute  drama,  though 
it  may  claim  to  mean  literature.  Tennyson  failed  signally  as 
a  playwright  —  despite  the  support  of  Henry  Irving;  Brown 
ing  likewise  failed  —  despite  the  encouragement  of  Macready 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY    19 

—  because  the  mind's  eye  saw  what  could  not  be  visibly 
depicted;    because  genius  pondered  where  progressive  action 
should  have  carried  forward  the  story  to  the  end.    But  when 
we  obtain,  in  lieu,  the  poetry  of  a  Tennyson  or  of  a  Browning 

—  even,  in  some  respects,  of  a  Stephen  Phillips  —  we  can 
afford  to  lose  the  playwright.    Yet  we  cannot  see  where  the 
fact  of  poetry  should  be  an  excuse  for  failure  as  playwright, 
if  the  poet  aims  for  the  stage. 

In  America,  we  have  the  poetic  drama,  but  it  neither  con 
trols  the  stage  nor  does  it  bear  evidence  of  native  strength. 
"Judith  of  Bethulia,"  by  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  was  a  slow- 
moving  tragedy,  a  mixture  of  Lady  Macbeth  and  studied 
history;  it  was  devoid  of  spontaneous  imagination,  and  the 
action  was  embroidered  in  words.  Josephine  Preston 
Peabody  (Mrs.  Lionel  Marks)  in  her  "Marlowe"  or  "  The 
Piper,"  Percy  Mackaye  in  "  A  Garland  to  Sylvia/'  or  "Sappho 
and  Phaon,"  Ridgely  Torrence  in  "Abelard  and  Heloise," 
Olive  Dargan  in  "Lords  and  Lovers"  —  all  of  them  have 
courted  form  alone,  ignoring  the  dynamics  of  the  stage,  or 
the  exigencies  of  the  scene.  These  plays  are  better  fitted  for 
the  closet. 

A  reading  public  and  a  theatre  public  differ  in  this:  that 
what  the  reader  loses  he  may  regain  by  turning  back,  but 
what  the  audience  misses  is  wholly  lost,  unless,  by  chance, 
repetition  brings  it  further  on  in  the  development  of  the  plot. 
American  drama  is  not  as  yet  sufficiently  compact  in  struc 
ture  to  satisfy  both  the  stage  and  literature. 

We  often  hear  it  said  that  drama  is  a  reflex  of  life;  hence, 
that  American  drama  is  a  reflex  of  American  life.  This  is 
but  another  way  of  asserting  that  drama  is  action,  since  life 
is  action;  that  drama  is  imitation,  since  reflex  means  re 
flection;  and  that  action  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  but  is  defi 
nitely  directed  towards  a  goal,  since  life  is  full  of  purpose. 
Drama,  if  it  means  directed  action,  must  of  necessity  call  in 


20  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

the  exercise  of  the  human  will,  and  where  will  is  required, 
there  is  involved  the  compensating  element  of  opposition. 

Therefore,  a  definition  of  drama  should  state  that  it  is 
action  directed  toward  an  end;  that  it  is  the  exertion  of  hu 
man  will  stimulated  by  some  large  emotional  or  mental  view; 
that  it  is  struggle,  whether  against  environment  or  the  indi 
vidual  —  a  struggle  against  Destiny  or  heredity  or  will. 

There  is  a  moment,  however,  when  events,  moved  by  con 
tending  emotions,  push  action  to  its  highest  pitch.  The  tide 
therefrom  begins  to  ebb,  to  adjust  or  resolve  itself.  Were 
we  to  express  this  progress  by  a  curve  of  development,  our 
climax  would  be  the  crest  of  the  wave,  with  the  line  of  descent 
sharper  than  that  of  ascent,  yet  governed  in  its  direction 
through  every  point  of  the  curve  from  its  beginning.  Fran- 
cisque  Sarcey  used  the  admirable  term  scenes  a  faire,  which 
indicates  the  organic  consistency  with  which  this  curve  of 
drama  is  drawn.  For  if  the  playwright  has  clearly  conceived 
the  central  plan  of  his  play,  and  has  definitely  fashioned  in 
his  mind  the  characteristics  of  his  chief  dramatis  personce, 
there  are  some  scenes  which  enter  his  calculations  whether 
he  will  or  not,  which  are  essential  to  the  understanding  of 
the  story  and  to  the  development  of  the  central  figures. 

Sometimes  our  American  dramatist  blinds  himself  to  this 
necessary  consistency,  since  it  demands  rig^pus  workman 
ship  and  clear  ideas ;  sometimes  he  is  unaiMF  to  cope  with 
such  close,  logical  technique.  This  is  true  of  most  attempts 
to  convert  novels  into  dialogue  for  the  stage;  the  effort  is 
to  externalize  the  important  scenes  in  the  book,  which  may 
hap  have  been  blue-pencilled  by  the  manager  or  his  reader 
as  the  situations  most  desired  for  a  commercial  success; 
or  those  extrances  and  exits  are  selected  that  will  best  suit 
the  limitations  of  a  particular  actor. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  drama  has,  throughout  its  history, 
been  written  for  the  stage,  a  definition  should  include  certain 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY    21 

expression  of  the  truth  that  drama  is  intended  for  representa 
tion.  Theory  will  never  make  the  dramatist;  a  few  principles 
will  not  construct  a  play.  Shakespeare  knew  his  playhouse; 
Sophocles  recognized  the  helpfulness  of  scenery ;  every  world- 
renowned  dramatist  has  been  brought  into  close  relation 
with  the  theatrics  of  his  profession.  And  though  there  are 
conventions  for  every  age,  conventions  which  modify  the 
form  and  affect  the  physical  outlines  of  the  theatre  itself, 
from  the  playhouse  of  Shakespeare  and  Moliere  to  that  of 
Clyde  Fitch  and  Augustus  Thomas,  the  dynamic  quality 
of  drama  remains  constant.  It  must  appeal  to  the  crowd. 
This  is  as  unfailing  in  exaction  for  the  American  dramatist 
as  it  was  for  the  ancient  Greek. 

Fine  distinctions  can  never  be  rigorously  formulated 
and  applied  to  drama.  We  cannot  go  to  the  theatre  with  a 
head  full  of  principles,  and  attempt  to  base  every  turn  of 
emotion,  every  technicality  of  structure,  upon  an  axiom  or 
a  psychological  formula  from  a  theatrical  text-book.  The 
point  cannot  be  sharply  defined  where  comedy  flows  into 
tragedy,  or  where  tragedy  fades  into  comedy,  even  though 
the  distinctions  made  by  Aristotle  in  the  "  Poetics  ""  are  clear 
in  mind. 

Hence,  in  our  pliable^lefinition  of  drama,  we  may  consider 
the  form  and  j^stance  to  be  the  imitation  of  a  particular 
action  which  would  be  accounted  for  from  its  beginning  to  its 
end,  in  a  style  consistent  with  its  emotional  color,  and  which 
is  destined,  through  the  medium  of  the  artist,  to  awaken  in 
others  a  feeling  of  sympathy  or  repulsion.  In  the  phrase, 
"emotional  color,"  we  have  the  motive  of  the  dramatist, 
prompting  him  to  write  the  play;  the  motive  of  the  manager 
in  selecting  the  play  for  his  theatre;  and  the  motives  of  the 
audiences  in  coming.  The  emotional  value  awakens  the 
desire;  it  is  the  awakening  that  determines  the  moral,  the 
educative  effect  of  drama  in  a  community. 


22  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Perhaps  this  may  sound  speculative,  yet  it  involves  the 
practical  elements  at  the  basis  of  the  theatre.  So  far,  we  may 
say  that  all  modern  drama  can  be  judged  by  these  elements. 
But  such  a  definition  as  we  have  here  constructed  only  affords 
us  a  framework  upon  which  to  trace  the  pattern  of  a  national 
art,  as  well  as  of  an  art  in  general.  Dramatic  history  indicates 
that  America  and  England  have  practically  come  under  the 
same  dramatic  influences;  it  will  reveal  the  fact  that  while 
in  London,  Robertson  and  Boucicault  and  Clement  Scott 
were  making  a  livelihood  by  filching  French  plays  and  in 
fusing  English  sentiment  into  them,  New  York  was  being 
subject  to  the  same  thing  under  the  regime  of  Augustin  Daly. 

The  American  playwright,  in  view  of  this  situation,  had 
for  a  long  while  to  fight  against  managerial  prejudice  which 
was  in  favor  of  the  foreign  market.  The  general  rule  was 
that  American  successes  were  practically  successes  of  Eng 
lish  dramatists.  This  distrust  of  native  talent  was  to  be 
deplored,  but  it  was  well  grounded.  For,  in  America,  tech 
nical  training  was  not  particular  at  the  outset.  Our  young 
playwrights  mistook  curiosity  for  interest,  noise  for  action, 
and  relied  for  effect  on  variety  rather  than  on  consistency, 
on  external  antics  of  the  dramatis  personce  rather  than  on 
outward  action  as  governed  by  mental  state  or  social  con 
dition.  America  is  so  large,  territorially,  that  we  seek  for 
sectional  types  and  details  of  life,  while  in  England  the 
dramatic  author  pays  more  attention  to  unity  of  conception 
and  technique  —  a  unity  that  will  sacrifice  artifice,  however 
effective,  for  the  sake  of  truth.  But  it  is  usually  English 
truth. 

There  are  very  definite  reasons  why  Bronson  Howard  is 
rightfully  considered  the  Dean  of  American  Drama  —  a 
rightful  title  according  to  seniority,  but  more  especially 
because  of  his  fight  in  the  seventies  and  eighties  for  American 
interests  in  American  drama  for  the  American  people.  Not 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY  23 

that  drama  of  any  kind,  if  it  fulfill  the  requirements  of 
drama,  will  fail  to  grip  us  wherever  we  are,  but  as  citizens 
of  a  body  politic  we  have  our  separate  interests  to  consider. 

Americans,  as  we  have  suggested,  are  characterized  by 
their  directness;  they  are  quick,  decisive,  and  almost  blunt 
in  conversation;  they  are  practically  imaginative  at  the 
present,  and  that  is  why  their  inventions  fill  the  market. 
Their  emotions  are  large,  and  their  sympathies  are  easily 
appealed  to.  The  controlling  factor  in  their  make-up  is 
a  sense  of  humor  —  not  so  subtle  as  the  English,  but 
more  good-humored.  Daniel  Frohman  once  said  that  the 
Germans  talked  their  plays,  while  the  Americans  acted 
theirs.  This  is  another  essential  of  drama:  constant  move 
ment  —  a  characteristic  which  is  typical  of  American  life. 

The  difference  between  British  and  American  drama  is 
the  difference  between  the  London  Times  amd  the  New 
York  Herald.  What  we  find  in  our  morning  paper,  we  are 
most  apt  to  find  again  in  our  evening  play.  The  life  of  the 
West  is  the  melodrama  of  the  East.  These  seemingly  face 
tious  statements  are  not  far  from  the  truth.  Yet  there  can 
be  found  no  definite  tendency  in  American  drama  of  the 
present,  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  is  no  well-defined 
philosophy  of  American  life.  We  have  just  waked  up  to  the 
fact  that  in  our  own  country,  richness  of  humanity  is  as 
plentiful  as  elsewhere.  We  draw  from  our  history,  especially 
from  the  Civil  War  period,  but  have  not  sufficiently  pene 
trated  the  social  life  of  these  vital  times  to  create  any  per 
manent  historical  drama.  James  A.  Herne's  "Griffith 
Davenport"  —  the  only  manuscript  of  which  was  burned  in 
a  fire  which  totally  destroyed  the  family  homestead,  "  Herne 
Oaks,"  —  was  the  finest  example  of  a  war  play  treated  in 
spirit,  rather  than  in  martial  action.  Clyde  Fitch's  "Bar 
bara  Frietchie"  may  be  termed  a  quasi-war  play  only; 
William  Gillette's  "Secret  Service,"  well  constructed  and 


24  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

atmospheric,  is  superior  to  Bronson  Howard's  "  Shenandoah" 
both  in  verity  and  in  story  interest;  Belasco's  "The  Heart 
of  Maryland"  is  more  melodramatically  striking  than 
William  DeMille's  "The  Warrens  of  Virginia."  Yet  all  of 
these  fail  to  grasp  the  essential  conditions  of  the  period. 

In  our  literary  deluge  of  the  past  and  present,  we  are  able 
to  point  only  to  a  few  products  that  have  etched  deep  upon 
the  page  the  very  fibre  of  national  and  sectional  life.  I  always 
like  to  mention  as  being  in  the  same  class,  Hawthorne's 
"The  Scarlet  Letter,"  Frank  Morris's  "The  Octopus,"  James 
Lane  Allen's  "The  Reign  of  Law,"  and  Ellen  Glasgow's  "The 
Deliverance."  Each  one  of  these  deals  with  something 
psychologically  large;  each  impresses  us  with  the  undoubted 
fact  that  the  situations,  as  well  as  the  spiritual  and  physical 
development  of  the  characters,  are  dependent  on  the  soil 
which  nurtured  them.  We  have  not  as  yet  produced  drama 
of  this  character.  William  Vaughn  Moody 's  "The  Great 
Divide,"  effective  though  it  proved  to  be  theatrically,  was 
a  false  imitation  of  the  method. 

There  is  in  this  country  a  deep  interest  in  the  drama  of 
condition.  But  in  satisfying  this  interest,  the  playwright 
must  see  that  he  does  not  lose  grip  on  the  essentials  of  all 
drama.  He  must  view  action  from  its  logical  outcome  to 
its  logical  conclusion.  However  local  he  is,  the  underlying 
force  must  be  a  motive  that  is  human,  that  knows  no  local 
restriction. 

Thus,  the  essentials  of  an  American  play  are  subject  to 
most  of  the  conditions  which  apply  to  the  development  of 
English,  French,  or  German  drama.  But  temperament  is 
colored  in  subtle  manner;  heredity  plays  a  part;  tradition, 
environment,  mental  training,  spiritual  guidance,  social 
demands,  —  all  leave  their  impress  upon  individual  life, 
hence,  upon  the  individual  dramatist.  There  undoubtedly 
is  such  a  thing  as  American  citizenship,  apart  from  its 


WILLIAM   VAUHHX  MOODY 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY    25 

political  significance.  The  essential  factor,  therefore,  is  to 
determine  whether  or  not  the  artisan  is  a  true  playwright; 
whether  he  understands  drama,  or  whether  he  has  a  false 
idea  of  its  organic  character.  To  obtain  the  best  out  of  dra 
matic  condition,  we  must  create  a  body  of  dramatic  criti 
cism  strong  enough  to  establish  a  wholesome  attitude  toward 
our  amusement.  For  in  our  desire  to  create  a  national 
dramatic  literature,  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is  far  more 
important  to  be  true  to  life  than  to  be  true  to  locality.  If 
the  dramatist,  of  whatever  country,  view  life  deeply,  sin 
cerely,  and  fully,  his  background  will  of  its  own  accord 
assume  its  proper  position  in  the  picture.  And  he  will  more 
assuredly  find  himself  the  author  of  a  successful  play. 


Ill 

The  spirit  of  unrest  is  not  only  evident  in  social  matters, 
but  in  our  amusements  as  well.  We  are  playing  with  public 
taste  without  any  aim  to  our  guns,  and  out  of  this  has  come 
only  novelty.  What  we  need  is  the  establishment  of  a  school 
of  playwrights,  prompted  by  some  large  impetus.  If  there 
be  originality  at  all  on  our  American  stage,  it  comes  to  us 
from  abroad,  and  is  colored  by  foreign  ideals.  The  motive 
power  of  drama  to-day  is  not  native  born;  we  in  America 
follow  and  imitate,  or  we  try  to  counteract  the  moral  tense 
ness  of  continental  drama  by  the  gaiety  and  glitter  of  musical 
comedy. 

It  cannot  be  expected  that  our  stage  would  be  the  first 
to  offer  what  our  American  literature  has  scarcely  supplied 
—  a  body  of  ideas  sufficiently  strong  to  incite  or  to  modify 
public  opinion,  as  Galsworthy's  "Justice"  wakened  England. 
One  cannot  refrain  from  saying  that,  apart  from  a  small 
number  of  American  dramatists,  most  of  those  authors 
writing  for  the  stage  are  prompted  by  nothing  more  impelling 


26  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

than  the  tempting  royalty  returns.  That  is  why  novelists 
wrongly  whip  themselves  into  dramatists.  They  are  alive 
to  sensation  as  the  reporter  is  alive,  and  curiously  they  lose 
their  literary  sense  of  values.  They  are  keen  after  a  story, 
but  the  narrative  quality  is  not  much  above  that  of  the 
average  ten-cent  magazine.  Though  they  would  be  the  first 
to  disclaim  it,  they  are  nothing  more  than  melodramatists, 
not  in  the  exaggerated  sense  of  Eighth  Avenue,  but  in  the 
realistic  sense  of  the  modern  novel. 

Since  this  is  the  condition,  since  theatrical  business  is 
increasing  without  a  corresponding  increase  in  the  authority 
of  the  playwright,  we  may,  with  some  reason,  despair  of 
public  taste  as  it  concerns  the  stage.  Where  are  we  tending 
in  our  home  product,  aided  or  injured,  as  you  will,  by  the 
commercial  theatre?  For,  strange  to  say,  though  our  women's 
clubs  throughout  the  country  are  actively  studying  modern 
drama  as  a  product  of  social  and  intellectual  forces,  they  are 
not  able  to  apply  the  ideas  of  Sudermann  or  Hauptmann 
to  their  own  experience,  save  in  so  far  as  the  plays  are 
sexual. 

This  is  unhealthy;  it  detaches  the  theatre  from  its  ethical 
purpose;  it  attempts  to  force  condition  to  adapt  itself  to 
an  imported  morality.  In  some  respects  we  cannot  call  it 
a  wrong  morality;  in  other  respects  we  know  it  is  harmful 
and  abnormal.  Most  of  our  dramatic  hysteria  is  a  result  of 
this  detached  appreciation  of  problems  that  do  not  concern 
us,  since  they  come  under  the  jurisdiction  of  a  different 
social  law.  We  Americans  can  never  fully  understand  the 
Gallic  spirit  for  this  reason.  Emerson  and  Maeterlinck  are 
of  the  same  spiritual  piece,  but  Maeterlinck  came  from 
Emerson.  Our  adjustment  of  family  life  is  so  different  from 
that  of  the  French  that  Bourget  seems  wholly  inadequate, 
so  far  as  general  impress  is  concerned.  So  it  was  with  Ibsen 
when  he  was  a  "fad,"  for  only  our  New  England  women 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY    27 

could  quite  know  the  terrors  of  a  social  conscience,  and  only 
our  farmers'  wives  and  daughters  could  be  said  to  resemble 
in  their  brooding  some  of  Ibsen's  heroines. 

What  I  wish  to  emphasize  is  that  at  the  present  time 
there  is  no  absolute  force  moulding  our  theatre  into  distinct 
form  or  purpose,  or  directing  either  the  actor,  the  playwright, 
or  the  public.  When  we  are  serious,  then  we  become  imi 
tators,  and  grow  excessive  in  our  desire  to  be  thought  extreme 
and  powerful.  A  system  of  philosophy  does  not  follow  from 
reflected  light;  a  Magda  cannot  be  evolved  from  an  atmos 
phere  in  no  way  warm  to  receive  her. 

We  are  splashing  around  in  a  rich  sea  of  American  human 
ity,  and  we  do  not  know  how  to  swim  with  the  strong  current. 
We  either  look  across  the  water  where  they  are  really  crea 
ting  a  body  of  ideas  for  the  stage,  or  else  we  turn  back  as 
Carleton  did  in  "Memnon,"  as  Conrad  did  in  "Jack  Cade," 
or  as  Boker  did  in  nearly  all  of  his  dramas,  to  history,  romance 
and  myth.  If  we  mention  American  history,  we  stop  just  at 
the  point  where  we  should  begin.  Condition  is  only  one 
phase  of  native  character;  it  has,  nevertheless,  so  far  modi- 
fled  human  action  as  to  stamp  the  American  with  outward 
and  evident  characteristics.  This  is  seen  in  Frank  Norris's 
novels,  and  in  the  sectional  literary  differences  between  the 
North  and  the  South.  Newspaper  condition,  i.  e.,  as  the 
American  newspaper  sees  American  condition,  is  the  one 
original  note  in  our  theatre. 

But  it  is  not  so  original  as  it  is  familiar  and  near  to  our 
own  experience.  That  is  the  one  hope  of  the  mediocre  activ 
ity  of  the  American  playwright.  There  is  more  verse  being 
written  in  this  country  than  ever  before,  but  it  is  not  poetry. 
Yet  the  increase  in  jingle  poets  at  least  indicates  a  poetic 
tendency.  So  is  it  with  drama;  we  are  writing  plays  every 
where,  but  even  as  the  inexperienced  poet  wrote  verses  to 
a  nightingale,  which  is  never  seen  in  America  save  at  a  public 


28  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

aviary,  so  the  playwright  seeks  everywhere  but  in  himself 
for  the  material  he  wishes. 

There  was  a  time  when  Schiller  and  Kotzebue  influenced 
the  American  stage;  there  was  another  time  when  Scribe, 
Hugo,  and  Dumas  became  the  models.  Then  there  arrived 
Wallack  and  Daly,  who,  as  theatrical  managers,  did  no 
jot  of  service  to  the  American  playwright,  until  Bronson 
Howard,  the  Dean  of  our  American  dramatists,  insisted 
upon  being  measured  on  his  own  merits.  Yet,  American 
though  he  was  in  interest  and  intention,  Mr.  Howard  was 
saturated  with  French  technique,  and  with  French  problems 
of  infidelity. 

I  know  of  no  American  drama,  based  on  imitation,  that 
has  not  failed  in  both  respects  —  to  be  American  and  to 
be  drama.  And  the  reason  why  we  lack  direction  is  that 
while  we  have  had  political  crises,  social  upheavals,  and 
economic  laws,  we  have  never,  save  in  the  days  of  extreme 
Puritanism,  had  spiritual  struggle. 

American  life  is  identified  with  outward  show  and  sign; 
in  that  respect  we  have  American  drama.  All  of  our  insti 
tutions  are  figuring  on  the  stage:  Charles  Klein  periodically 
and  in  superficial  manner,  muck-rakes  a  corporation.  That 
is  sheer  journalism.  There  must  be  something  within  a  man 
so  firmly  connected  with  his  soil  —  not  with  his  nationality 
—  that  if  it  were  severed,  all  the  life-blood  of  his  conviction 
would  turn  ansemic.  We  lack  conviction,  we  are  anaemic  on 
our  stage,  and  it  were  well  to  seek  a  remedy. 

In  England,  there  is  a  school  of  drama  which  attempts  to 
supply  a  stage  play,  measured  according  to  literary  standards ; 
in  Ireland,  there  is  evident  an  impulse  which  may  result 
also  in  a  powerful  and  distinctive  school.  But  usually  a 
type  of  dramatic  expression  comes  from  the  workshop  of 
one  man,  individualistic  enough  in  his  message,  alive  enough 
in  his  intentness,  to  override  the  limitation  of  his  culture 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY    29 

and  to  be  affected  by  his  contemporaries  or  by  his  reading. 
Ibsen  lured,  as  the  Rat-Wife  lured  Eyolf,  and  everyone  mis 
took  his  realism  for  an  abortion,  when,  in  reality,  it  was 
strong  with  moral  and  social  purpose.  Both  he  and  Tolstoy 
strove  for  good,  honest  ends  —  the  one  thoroughly  consis 
tent,  the  other  contradictory;  and  both  victims  of  their 
own  self-scourging. 

Not  one  of  our  little  writers  for  the  theatre  to-day  has 
that  set  purpose,  that  moral  steadfastness.  For  our  drama 
does  not  come  from  within.  It  is  something  tangible;  it 
is  raw  life-stuff  (our  great  hope)  needing  the  craftsman  and 
the  seer. 

IV 

It  may  almost  be  stated  as  an  aphorism  that  the  critical 
faculty  is  usually  in  advance  of  the  creative  faculty.  What 
ever  a  man  does,  as  exemplification  of  his  theory,  is  never  an 
exact  illustration  of  it;  there  is  always  a  rift  in  the  armor 
of  accomplishment.  So  it  is  that  we  find  Ibsen's  realism 
falling  at  times  into  well-planned  theatricalism ;  Maeter 
linck's  static  drama  giving  way  to  the  full-blooded  passion 
of  "Monna  Vanna;"  Shaw's  prefaces  surpassing  his  plays 
in  truth  and  application;  Jones'  "Renascence  of  the  English 
Drama"  a  clearer  arraignment  of  English  conventions 
than  any  of  his  dramas. 

This  means  that  the  critical  faculty  prepares  the  way, 
and  whenever  a  dramatist  wishes  to  clear  his  mind  of  ob 
scurity,  he  falls  into  expressions  of  opinion  which  usually 
take  form  in  lectures,  talks,  or  interviews.  Only  last  May, 
Brieux  delivered  himself  of  a  long  discourse  before  the  Aca- 
demie  Francaise,  not  upon  technique  which  marks  such  a 
piece  as  "Les  Trois  Filles  de  M.  Dupont,"  but  upon  the  ten 
derness  of  "L'Abbe  Constantin"  and  its  romantic  author. 
Not  that  a  dramatist  repudiates  his  theories,  his  tastes,  his 


30  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

critical  aim,  when  he  comes  to  write,  but  his  critical  purpose 
has  to  be  made  subservient  to  the  essential  purpose  of  the 
theatre. 

I  have  often  thought  how  healthy,  how  almost  juvenile 
the  American  dramatist  is  in  his  appreciation  of  external 
opportunities;  how  willing  he  is  to  set  himself  any  difficult 
mechanical  task  for  accomplishment  on  the  stage.  David 
Belasco  is  such  a  craftsman.  But  with  this  creative  exuber 
ance  has  arisen  the  need  for  analyzing  what  this  big  American 
life  really  means  for  stage  purposes,  how  it  may  be  used  so 
as  to  represent  the  storm  and  stress  of  material  growth,  with 
out  destroying  the  idealism  which  is  the  heritage  of  every 
nation,  and  more  especially  a  young  one.  Many  play 
wrights  have  expressed  their  views  to  me,  and  each  one  of 
them  has  advanced  beyond  his  practice  and  has  preached 
excellently  well. 

I  always  found  Bronson  Howard  to  be  twice  the  American 
as  man  that  he  was  as  playwright.  "One  of  Our  Girls," 
"Saratoga,"  "Kate,"  are  all  French  moulds  containing  stray 
flecks  of  native  dialogue.  From  what  I  know  of  New  York 
society  drama  at  the  time  they  were  written,  this  was  the 
entertainment  most  acceptable  to  the  theatre  public.  But 
their  spirit  was  hardly  as  Mr.  Howard  felt  personally  about 
American  drama  —  how  it  should  deal  specifically  with 
American  conditions  and  with  American  types. 

Of  all  our  dramatists,  James  A.  Herne  may  be  said  to 
have  come  nearest  to  the  soil,  doing  as  much  for  the  theatre 
as  ever  W.  D.  Howells  has  done  for  literature.  Yet,  after 
he  had  tried  some  keen-edged  realism  in  "Margaret  Fleming" 
and  some  evenly-balanced  history  in  "Griffith  Davenport," 
he  was  obliged  to  compromise  with  his  public,  and  to  encase 
his  simple  motives  and  his  poignantly  simple  emotions  in  a 
melodramatic  setting.  But  even  then  he  did  not  forsake  his 
critical  theory;  he  held  to  the  natural  method  of  dialogue, 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY    31 

hewing  out  of  native  character  what  later  and  lesser  dram 
atists  hewed  out  of  a  half-understanding  of  Ibsen.  It  is  a 
strange  instance,  this,  of  Mr.  Herne's  sensing  Ibsen  before 
his  day.  Yet,  though  in  a  way  he  could  not  practice  what 
he  preached,  James  A.  Herne  continued  to  preach,  and  his 
statements  in  lectures  and  interviews  are  in  advance  of  his 
actual  stage  work.  And  his  distinctions  were  always  un 
erringly  ethical.  "If  a  disagreeable  truth,"  he  wrote,  "is  not 
also  an  essential,  it  should  never  be  used  in  art."  Mr.  Herne 
realized  certain  didactic  touches  in  "Margaret  Fleming," 
but  he  felt  his  manner  of  characterization  was  right.  It  was 
simply  ahead  of  its  time,  and  only  the  critical  outlook  can 
travel  so  far.  That  is  why  "Shore  Acres"  followed  rather 
than  preceded  "Margaret  Fleming." 

Now,  there  is  one  essential  our  American  dramatist  has 
fully  realized  —  that  the  stage  must  have  action  and  depict 
a  human  story.  From  American  life  he  has  learned  the  one, 
since  its  chief  characteristic  is  movement;  and  from  the 
American  newspaper  he  has  gleaned  the  other,  since  the 
motive  power  of  our  journalism  is  the  scare-line  which  tells 
something  at  a  glance.  In  a  democracy,  the  man  who  studies 
his  public  as  he  rides  downtown  in  the  cars  will  find  it  difficult 
to  reach  any  collective  point  of  view  of  the  crowd.  He  finds, 
if  he  is  writing  a  play,  that  no  theory  of  his  will  transcend 
the  popular  test  of  all  successful  drama:  does  it  get 
across  the  "foots,"  does  it  appeal  to  the  heart,  does  it 
interest? 

This  applies  to  all  types  of  drama  for  all  types  of  people. 
It  holds  good  for  air  quality  of  amusement  at  the  theatre. 
For  beneath  the  cuticle  of  culture,  we  are  all  akin;  the  ele 
mental  make-up  of  emotion  is  the  same  for  all;  only  the 
method  of  expressing  this  emotion  differs.  While  he  was 
at  the  height  of  his  melodrama  days,  Owen  Davis  —  always 
more  or  less  a  student  of  the  peculiar  clientele  he  had  for 


32  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

"Nellie,  the  Beautiful  Cloak  Model"  and  "Convict 
came  from  studying  his  audiences  with  this  conclusion: 

"I  soon  found  that  humanity  was  the  key-note  of  their 
interest;  that  the  elemental  passions  appealed  to  under  a 
coating  of  sugar  by  the  Broadway  dramatist  were  the 
same  as  those  aroused  by  the  Third  Avenue  playwright  with 
out  the  coating.  In  all  plays,  whether  given  in  the  two- 
dollar  houses,  or  in  the  less  imposing  ten-twenty-thirty  cent 
places  of  amusement,  there  must  be  at  bottom  some  big 
dominant  human  emotion.  On  Broadway  you  must  hide 
the  springs  that  move  your  puppets  —  and  be  subtle,  moving 
toward  your  climax  circuitously." 

So  it  was  that  Owen  Davis,  graduate  from  Harvard,  laid 
aside  his  theories,  and,  determined  in  the  type  of  "thriller" 
wanted  of  him,  made  a  success  of  his  venture.  Only  now  is 
he  beginning  to  do  the  serious  work  which  he  has  aimed  to 
do  for  many  years ;  but  his  critical  faculty  showed  him  which 
way  Al  Woods  was  developing.  And  as  long  as  five  years 
ago  he  predicted  that  "Chinatown  Charlie"  would  be  for 
saken  by  hordes  for  such  subtle  vulgarity  as  "The  Girl  in 
the  Taxi." 

A  man's  reach  should  exceed  his  grasp,  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  there  are  high  planes  of  aspiration  among  all '  our 
dramatists.  Like  Jones,  who  first  wrote  "The  Silver  King" 
—  arrant  melodrama  —  before  he  felt  justified  in  dealing 
with  problems,  they  speak  in  broad,  and  always  in  com 
parative  terms,  regarding  American  drama,  and  they  show 
very  well  their  fears  and  pride. 

It  was  a  long  while  before  Charles  Klein  was  received  by 
his  public  as  a  critic  of  American  condition,  even  though 
years  before  the  advent  of  "  The  Lion  and  the  Mouse,"  "  The 
Third  Degree,"  and  "The  Gamblers,"  he  had  written  "The 
District  Attorney"  and  "The  Honorable  John  Grigsby." 
Not  many  readers  identify  his  name  as  the  librettist  for  "El 


Photo,   by  Otto  Sarony  Co 


CHARLES  KLEIN 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY    33 

Capitan"  and  "Red  Feather,"  yet  he  had  to  relinquish  his 
ideas  for  a  while  in  order  to  pave  the  way  for  popular  au 
thority  to  state  them. 

Many  talks  with  Mr.  Klein  only  impressed  me  more  and 
more  with  the  fact  that  even  an  undisciplined  critical  per 
spective  tends  beyond  the  point  where  it  would  be  expe 
dient  to  practice.  Mr.  Klein's  philosophy  of  life  is  much 
clearer  in  his  conversation  than  in  his  plays.  Maybe,  as 
he  says,  the  public  obtains  in  these  plays  of  his  a  point  of 
view  that  niters  through  his  individuality.  "That  there  is 
an  American  drama,"  he  once  said  to  me,  "is  as  certain  as 
that  there  is  an  American  life.  But  we  are  in  the  process  of 
adjustment;  we  have  reached  and  are  in  the  experimental 
stage.  Our  drama  is  forming.  In  the  near  future,  there  will 
arise  a  social  conflict;  and  the  East  will  struggle  with  the 
West.  From  this  opposition,  a  great  drama  will  be  born." 

But  Mr.  Klein  in  his  social  and  economic  history  is  rather 
undisciplined.  "The  Lion  and  the  Mouse"  and  "The 
Gamblers "  show  this.  The  critical  faculty  must  have  a  care 
how  far  it  goes  without  intellectual  justification.  Unwar 
ranted  statements  from  our  dramatists,  such  as  fill  the 
daily  press,  show  the  need  for  a  body  of  ideas  that  are  more 
sanely  optimistic.  I  shall  try  to  epitomize  Mr.  Klein's 
critical  outlook  as  concisely  and  as  faithfully  as  possible. 

"  It  is  true  that  the  public  wishes  psychology,"  he  declared, 
"but  no  half-lights;  that  is  Ibsen's  treatment.  There  is 
much  melodrama  in  life,  but  not  all  of  it  is  the  conflict  of 
violent  emotion.  We  often  see  the  effects  without  the  causes, 
but  the  American  mind,  to  be  convinced,  must  have  both. 
Mellow  light,  mere  shadowgraph,  will  not  convince.  That 
is  partly  the  reason  Bernard  Shaw's  influence,  to  my  mind, 
is  negative;  he  tears  down  ideals  without  building,  and  his 
ruthlessness  results  in  reaction.  The  denial  of  a  higher 
truth  always  creates  disgust. 


34  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

"  Both  Shaw  and  Ibsen  only  tell  half-truths.  To  be  an 
incomparable  technician  is  not  everything,  but  whereas  Ibsen 
assails  what  we  hold  in  abhorrence,  Shaw  turns  to  what  is 
sacred.  Goethe  dubbed  Mephistopheles  'the  spirit  of 
negation/  but  it  takes  a  fairly  good  comedian  to  wear  a 
Mephistopheles'  make-up.  I  cannot  believe  that  a  man, 
like  Shaw,  who  denies  everything,  from  pure  love  to  pure 
music,  is  a  public  beneficence;  only  the  man  who  affirms 
what  is  good  tells  the  whole  truth." 

When  a  dramatist  talks  aloud  in  this  fashion,  he  is  in  a  way 
sending  out  that  part  of  him  which  in  stage  dialogue  might 
be  considered  didactic.  One  may  dare  much  in  criticism; 
it  is  supposed  to  question  art  in  terms  of  far- vision;  it  is 
supposed  to  weigh  causes  in  the  light  of  far-reaching  effects. 
That  is  where  the  constructive  ability  of  the  critic  gives  him 
claim  to  imagination  of  a  high  creative  order.  It  represents 
the  impulse  back  of  the  writer  —  the  impulse  to  be  a  good 
citizen.  For  the  dramatist,  above  all  other  professional  and 
artistic  persons,  must  be  a  strong,  virile  citizen. 

"  In  American  life,"  Mr.  Klein  continued,  "  the  important 
feature  is  to  emulate,  to  imitate.  Everyone  is  striving  to  be 
rich;  in  the  instinct,  in  the  will  to  be  rich,  we  surely  find  the 
great  dramatic  action.  This  race  for  the  material  does  not 
bar  metaphysical  considerations.  Avarice  is  constantly  in 
conflict  with  principle,  with  drama  as  the  result,  since  drama 
always  spells  conflict.  Desire  in  American  condition  grapples 
with  obstructing  circumstances,  with  the  individual  as  the 
centre  of  the  vortex.  In  trying  to  express  these  thoughts  we 
all  have  to  resort  to  verbs  of  action. 

"A  condition  is  not  a  problem;  after  all,  it  is  only  a  con 
dition,  but  somewhere  in  it  is  the  conflict.  If  the  dramatist 
portray  the  condition,  drama  is  the  outward  expression  of 
his  views.  The  American  public  is  guided  by  instinct  along 
the  lines  of  optimism.  We  are  in  process  of  adjustment  with 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  PLAY    35 

the  classes.  Some  day  the  English  will  undoubtedly  undergo 
a  readjustment,  but  now  they  are  presumably  fixed.  The 
very  fact  that  we  Americans  are  finding  ourselves,  constitutes 
drama.  The  American  tragedy  lies  in  the  fact  that  we  can 
not  find  what  we  want;  the  English  people  have  realized 
that  what  they  have  found  is  empty.  Our  greatest  tragedy 
will  be  when  we  wake  up  to  the  truth  that  our  illusions  are 
illusions.  In  fact,  the  tragedy  of  the  whole  world,  a 
tragedy  wherein  the  element  of  hope  is  seen  in  the  very  fact 
that  we  search  for  something  higher,  is  the  almost  dis 
couraging  effort  to  find  the  truth,  the  ideal.  Europe  is  de 
generating  in  moral  tone  because  she  has  no  hope.  I  glean 
from  Gibbon  that  when  sexual  instinct  absorbs  a  nation  as 
it  appears  to  absorb  France,  there  is  very  little  room  left 
for  the  development  of  any  other  instinct.  The  healthy 
part  of  us  is  that  the  American  mind  is  not  yet  so  absorbed." 

Now,  in  recording  these  views  of  Mr.  Klein's,  I  do  not 
wish  to  leave  the  impression  that  they  do  not  in  some  small 
way  appear  in  his  dramas.  I  give  them  as  the  unified  ex 
pression  of  the  average  American  interest  in  dramatic  con 
dition;  for  the  dramatist  does  not  have  to  be  a  student  of 
drama.  If  he  possesses  the  instinct,  if  he  keeps  in  touch  with 
the  theatre  conditions  around  him,  if  he  reads  and  sees  plays, 
that  is  all  he  needs.  Unconsciously,  he  senses  the  evolution 
of  form;  unconsciously  he  shapes  his  material  in  that  mould 
to  which  his  good  taste,  his  interest,  and  his  motive  lead 
him. 

But  the  dramatist,  if  he  is  anything  of  a  craftsman,  has 
to  know  something  more  than  the  mere  letter  of  his  trade. 
Though  he  never  use  economics,  sociology,  biology,  or  kin 
dred  subjects,  he  is  the  richer  for  a  knowledge  which  allows 
his  imagination  to  explore  in  fields  closed  to  untutored  minds. 
No  dramatist  in  his  play  can  say  —  such  shall  be  the  moral 
verdict,  such  shall  be  the  solution  of  poverty,  such  shall  be 


36  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

the  future  of  America.  But  the  critic  can  say  to  the  dramatist 
—  such  will  be  the  moral  verdict,  such  may  be  the  solution 
of  poverty,  such  tends  to  be  the  future  of  America  when 
you  come  to  it.  Our  drama  needs  knowledge  upon  which 
to  develop  a  rich  imagination. 


Photo,  by  Pack  Bros 


RICHARD  HARDINU  DAVIS 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  TREND  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA  FROM   1750  TO   1870 

I 

THE  amusement  world  is  large  enough  to  foster  repertory 
houses,  for  America  cannot  afford  to  let  dramatic  material 
go  to  waste.  Certain  excellent  quality  in  the  satire  of 
Charles  Hoyt's  farces  should  be  rehabilitated,  and  there  is 
no  doubt  that  Edward  Harrigan's  Irish  fun  was  fraught  with  a 
genuineness  that  should  be  perpetuated.  Professor  Matthews 
once  spoke  of  Weber  and  Fields  and  their  products  as  the 
Aristophanes  period  of  American  drama,  yet  it  is  as  impos 
sible  to  perpetuate  the  peculiar  genius  of  these  two  as  to 
re-create  the  unctuousness  of  the  elder  Hackett,  the  geniality 
of  John  Gilbert,  or  the  humor  of  John  T.  Raymond. 

The  time  has  come  for  stock  companies;  these  institu 
tions  are  the  real  dramatic  storehouses  of  the  country.  But 
Daniel  Frohman,  in  his  "Memories  of  a  Manager,"  is  far 
from  believing  that  a  return  to  the  old-time  system  can  be 
effected.  Repertory  companies  reproduce  successes  of 
only  a  few  seasons  past,  like  Davis's  "Soldiers  of  Fortune" 
and  Thomas's  "Arizona."  They  occasionally  take  stand 
ardized  plays,  like  Lottie  Blair  Parker's  "Way  Down  East" 
(1897)  or  "Under  Southern  Skies"  (1901),  and  like  C.  T. 
Dazey's  "In  Old  Kentucky,"  familiar  to  everyone.  In  the 
face  of  theatrical  circuits,  however,  audiences  are  more 
likely  to  want  the  success  of  the  season  immediately  past  — 
a  season  which  wins  for  the  play  the  headline  that  "it  ran 


38  THE   AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

for  one  hundred  and  fifty  consecutive  nights  in  New  York." 
Yet  such  advertising,  though  it  dupe  the  provincial  theatre 
goer,  is  not  always  true,  for,  as  pointed  out  in  a  pamphlet 
on  "The  Amusement  Situation  in  the  City  of  Boston,"1 
"hardly  a  bulletin-board  announcing  a  New  York  run  but 
brazenly  and  boldly  lies  about  its  extent.  Ten  or  twelve 
weeks  in  New  York  (several  of  which  were  very  probably  in 
Brooklyn  or  in  remotely  situated  theatres)  is  advertised  on 
the  road  as  'One  Year  in  New  York/  or  '300  Nights  on 
Broadway.'  A  season  of  thirty  weeks  (divided  among  the 
same  groups  of  theatres)  is  advertised  on  the  road  as  '  Seventy 
weeks  in  New  York/  or  '490  days  in  New  York/  More 
conscientious  managers  actually  run  their  plays  in  the 
smaller  New  York  theatres  week  after  week  at  considerable 
loss  to  themselves,  in  order  to  get  some  excuse  for  sending 
them  upon  the  road  as  a  claimed  '  Broadway  Success/  with 
a  record  for  a  long  run!" 

I  quote  this  as  authentic  evidence  of  the  fact  that  with  the 
increase  of  theatrical  business,  the  road  has  either  become 
a  place  for  trying  out,  or  for  duping.  The  manager  peddles 
his  wares,  unless  he  has  no  wares  to  peddle;  then  he  falls 
back  upon  the  scrap  heap,  out  of  which  he  builds  himself 
a  repertory. 

These  stock  company  houses  are  good  things,  even  though 
they  tend  unmercifully  to  overwork  the  actor.  They  are 
excellent  measure  of  the  vitality  of  a  play,  and,  except  in 
the  instances  of  special  revivals,  they  are  the  only  havens 
where  the  theatre-goer  may  hope  to  keep  in  touch  with  the 

1  Based  on  a  study  of  the  theatres  for  ten  weeks,  from  Nov.  28, 
1909,  to  Feb.  5,  1910.  This  is  a  report  of  the  Drama  Committee 
of  the  Twentieth  Century  Club,  of  that  city.  The  theatre  receives 
social  treatment,  also,  in  a  more  pretentious  way,  in  a  pamphlet: 
"The  Exploitation  of  Pleasure:  A  Study  of  Commercial  Recrea 
tions  in  New  York  City,"  by  Michael  M.  Davis,  Jr.,  published  by 
the  Department  of  Child  Hygiene,  of  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation. 


AMERICAN  DRAMA  FROM   1750  TO   1870    39 

past.  When  the  New  Theatre  was  contemplating  the 
revival  of  a  few  old  American  dramas,  it  might  have  been 
well  had  the  Director  kept  his  eye  upon  these  repertory 
centres. 

It  would  seem,  to  go  a  step  further,  that  the  time  has 
even  arrived  for  us  to  renovate  some  of  the  popular  plays 
of  the  past.  Robson  and  Crane  became  noted  in  their  pro 
duction  of  Howard's  "The  Henrietta;"  and  "The  Young 
Mrs.  Winthrop,"  by  the  same  author,  still  has  appeal  and 
literary  flavor.  These  plays  are  old-fashioned — not  in  their 
plots,  not  in  their  essential  human  interest,  but  in  their 
contemporaneousness.  This  contemporaneousness  should 
be  made  contemporary,  unless  the  play  is  dependent  upon 
the  atmosphere  of  the  past. 

B.  E.  Woolfs  "The  Mighty  Dollar"  (1875),  with  literally 
"millions  in  it,"  used  to  draw  crowded  houses,  quite  as 
much  on  account  of  the  amusing  characteristics  of  Judge 
Bar  dwell  Slote,  M.C.,  from  Cohosh  district,  as  because  of 
the  acting  of  W.  J.  Florence.  Mulberry  Sellers,  the  famous 
vehicle  for  John  T.  Raymond,  made  Mark  Twain's  "The 
Gilded  Age" — a  play  with  ample  humor,  and  worth  reno 
vating.  Professor  Matthews,  always  ready  with  a  literary 
analogy,  would  connect  the  latter  play  with  Jonson's  "The 
Divill  is  an  Ass"  (1616).  Maybe  Mr.  Clemens  sought  to 
renovate  the  Elizabethans,  even  as  Colley  Gibber  rewrote 
Shakespeare,  but  there  is  enough  good  matter  in  Sellers  to 
have  a  revival,  after  the  manuscript  has  been  adequately 
reinforced  by  a  skilled  craftsman. 

This  much  we  know:  that  there  are  no  available  copies 
of  "The  Mighty  Dollar"  or  of  "The  Gilded  Age,"  and  that 
they  should  be  in  type.  Their  historical  importance  lies 
in  the  attempt  they  made  to  create  the  American  for  the 
stage.  They  were  eccentric,  in  the  sense  that  Weber  and 
Fields  were  eccentric,  and  they  depended  largely  upon  the 


40  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

genius  of  the  actor.  They  were  built  parts,  in  the  sense 
that  Dundreary,  under  the  fashioning  of  E.  A.  So  them's 
nimble  wit,  was  a  growth  from  forty-seven  lines.  It  is  my 
belief  that  the  old-fashioned  conception  of  the  American 
would  be  as  amusing  to  present  generations  —  even  though 
out  of  date —  as  the  conventional  Englishman  in  Dundreary, 
which  was  revived  by  Sothern,  the  son.  But,  in  order  to 
retain  some  vestige  of  originality,  despite  the  evanescent 
character  of  much  of  the  dialogue,  it  should  be  made  incum 
bent  upon  the  author  or  the  producer  to  publish  the  play  as 
originally  conceived. 

It  may  be  claimed  with  justice  that  such  actors  as  Sothern, 
Irving,  Jefferson,  and  Mansfield  have  created  marvellous 
acting  parts;  but  there  is  much  doubt  as  to  whether  the 
public  of  the  older  generation  would  accept  Sothern's  son 
as  Dundreary,  Jefferson's  son  as  Rip  Van  Winkle,  and 
Irving's  son  as  Mathias  in  "  The  Bells."  They  are  commen 
dable  substitutes,  but  they  are  in  no  way  just  as  good. 
Even  now,  there  is  prejudice  in  the  minds  of  those  who  have 
seen  Booth,  as  though  lingering  memory  will  better  theat 
rical  condition!  Yet  one  cannot  discount  the  prejudices 
of  an  audience,  and  there  is  ample  cause  to  believe  that 
were  an  actor  to  play  "Beau  Brummel"  or  "A  Parisian 
Romance,"  ripe  upon  Mansfield's  death,  he  would  suffer 
in  comparison.  But  must  we,  because  of  a  prejudice,  sacri 
fice  plays  that  are  effective  theatrically,  whatever  the  time 
or  season?  There  is  life  in  all  success  —  for  success  comes 
from  general  approval,  and  the  public  heart  is  much  the 
same  always. 

I  am  speaking  entirely  of  dramas  that  in  their  day  have 
created  wonderful  theatrical  impressions.  There  is  only  one 
guide  a  manager  should  follow  in  the  matter  of  repertory: 
renovation  must  be  carried  on  in  the  light  of  modern  tech 
nique,  but  in  a  manner  wholly  consistent  with  the  tenor  of 


AMERICAN  DRAMA  FROM   1750  TO   1870    41 

the  piece.  Social  drama  is  constructed  on  the  Ibsen  pattern ; 
therefore,  the  screws  must  be  tightened  throughout  "The 
Young  Mrs.  Winthrop,"  originally  modeled  on  Scribe.  The 
art  of  renovation  is  even  more  of  an  art  than  that  of  trans 
lation. 

This  suggestion  of  renovation  seems  both  startling  and 
humorous;  in  it  also  there  is  an  element  of  danger.  No  one 
wishes  to  see  a  modernized  Rembrandt,  and  for  my  part  I 
deplore  amended  Miltons  and  simplified  Scotts.  But  only 
in  an  art  which  is  fluid  would  I  consider  renovation.  For 
all  dramatists  know,  as  the  trite  saying  goes,  that  plays  are 
never  written;  that  they  are  rewritten.  And  they  might 
just  as  well  be  revamped  in  1911  as  in  1875.  Yet,  without 
the  sanction  of  the  playwright,  without  his  personal  super 
vision,  faith  must  be  kept  with  the  original,  and  that  original 
must  be  published. 

II 

If  one  should  be  asked,  however,  to  frame  a  list  of  Ameri 
can  plays  suitable  for  immediate  revival,  the  task  would  be 
disillusionizing.  For  it  would  show  that  previous  to  1870, 
the  larger  part  of  American  drama  only  had  interest  his 
torically  and  histrionically.  It  was  either  history  or  the 
actor  that  encouraged  native  product  —  a  product  cast  in 
foreign  mould  from  the  very  outset.1  The  way  of  reviewing 
the  past  in  American  drama  is  simply  to  assume  points  of 
view  that  will  accord  with  a  consistent  grouping  of  the  many 
plays.  The  tendencies  are  much  more  evident  and  [much 
more  distinctive  than  the  national  traits. 

For  the  very  earliest  theatrical  records  indicate  that  our 
very  earliest  audiences  were  accustomed  to  such  comedies 

1  For  consideration  of  the  stage  "To-day  and  Yesterday,"  see 
my  "Famous  Actor-Families  in  America." 


42  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

as  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  "Rule  a  Wife  and  Have  a 
Wife,"  broad  in  humor  and  Elizabethan  in  diction.  In  fact, 
when  the  drama  first  came  to  America,  and  began  its  exist 
ence  at  the  Williamsburg  Theatre,  under  the  patronage  of  Gov 
ernor  Dinwiddie  (September  5,  1752),  American  civilization 
was  thoroughly  English.  If  the  drama  started  in  the  South, 
it  was  because  the  Cavalier  spirit  was  ready  to  receive  it, 
because  the  Southern  landed  proprietor,  a  devotee  of  Addi- 
son  and  Steele,  believed  in  the  luxury  of  living  rather  than 
in  making  constant  preparation  for  death.  The  drama 
forced  its  way  in  the  North,  despite  the  Puritan  prejudice  in 
New  England  and  the  Quaker  feeling  in  Philadelphia.  Yet 
we  cannot  quite  blame  the  qualms  of  the  latter  city  when  its 
first  theatre,  opened  on  April  15,  1754,  had  for  its  bill,Rowe's 
tragedy,  "The  Fair  Penitent."  Certain  it  was  that,  apart 
from  Shakespeare  Cibberized,  the  early  theatre-going  taste 
was  atune  to  Congreve  and  Farquhar,  while  the  glory  of 
Garrick  stamped  all  acting.1 

Our  first  historians  of  the  drama  record  amateur  perform 
ances  as  early  as  1749;  Otway  and  Addison  were  the 
favored  dramatists.  But  American  theatrical  enterprise 
started  with  William  Hall  am,  whose  company  constituted 
the  first  real  "road"  organization.  This  history  applies 
strictly  to  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  theatre;  the  type  of 
play,  which  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  spirit  of 
America,  reflected  the  colonial  taste.  Some  people  there 
are  who  would  so  far  stretch  a  point  as  to  claim  that  for  a 
performance  of  Garrick's  farce,  "Lethe,"  a  prologue  was 
prepared,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  day,  and  that  this 

1  The  reader  is  referred  to  George  O.  Seilhamer's  invaluable 
"History  of  the  American  Theatre"  (1888);  to  Dunlap's  "History 
of  the  American  Theatre;"  to  Joseph  Ireland's  "Records  of  the 
New  York  Stage  from  1750  to  1860";  and  to  T.  Allston  Brown's 
"History  of  the  New  York  Stage  from  the  First  Performance  in 
1732  to  1901." 


AMERICAN  DRAMA  FROM   1750  TO   1870    43 

prologue  represents  the  first  bit  of  writing  done  in  America 
for  the  theatre.  I  do  not  believe  that  an  arduous  search 
through  the  provincial  columns  of  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette 
or  of  the  New  York  Postboy  would  bring  to  light  any  hidden 
American  dramatist  before  Royall  Tyler  appeared  upon  the 
scene;  that  is,  one  whose  distinct  aim  was  to  display  the 
American  spirit. 

By  the  time  our  colonists  became  accustomed  to  "pro 
fane  stage  plays,"  the  controversial  period  of  American 
history  had  arrived,  and  when  the  British  reached  New 
York  and  Philadelphia,  they  turned  the  playhouses  to  their 
own  pleasure,  the  redcoats  becoming  actors  for  the  oc 
casion.  There  was  a  drop  curtain  in  existence  for  a  long 
while  after  the  Revolution,  which  tradition  claims  was 
painted  by  Major  Andre. 

In  our  search  for  dramatic  activity  in  America,  it  were 
well  to  dispose  in  a  word  of  certain  forms  of  writing  done 
for  the  stage.  Washington  was  an  inveterate  theatre-goer, 
and  when  the  Continental  Congress  closed  the  playhouses 
on  October  24,  1774,  he  was  very  much  perturbed.  So  that, 
after  his  death,  the  theatres  paid  him  a  tribute  by  having 
the  leading  actress,  "in  the  character  of  the  Genius  of 
America  weeping  over  the  Tomb  of  her  beloved  HERO," 
recite  "  A  Monody  on  the  Death  of  GENERAL  WASHINGTON." 
Certainly  we  cannot  in  any  way  regard  General  Burgoyne 
as  an  American  playwright,  even  though  his  farce,  "The 
Blockade  of  Boston,"  dealt  with  an  American  subject.  But 
this  farce  from  the  British  pen,  in  which  the  Continental 
Army  was  derided,  drew  from  Mrs.  Mercy  Warren  a  counter- 
thrust  in  "The  Blockheads,"  a  burlesque  polemic.1 

It  will  be  seen  from  such  entries  that  during  the  Revolu 
tion  the  theatre  was  a  place  for  satire,  smacking  of  oratory. 

1  See  "Beginnings  of  American  Dramatic  Literature,"  Paul 
Leicester  Ford,  New  Eng.  Mag.,  Feb.,  1894,  n.s.  9:  673-87. 


44  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

The  product  came  from  the  heat  of  the  moment.  One 
might  just  as  well  claim  that  the  references  to  America  in 
Chapman's  "Eastward  Hoe"  or  in  Shakespeare's  "The 
Tempest,"  or  that  Governor  Berkeley's  dramas  were  Ameri 
can,  as  that  these  controversial  pieces  were  either  plays  or, 
strictly  speaking,  American.  For  example,  Paul  Leicester 
Ford  points  to  "The  Battle  of  Brooklyn,"  a  play  by  an  un 
known  author,  and,  despite  its  ridicule  of  Washington, 
doubts  whether  its  origin  is  British  or  American.  We 
find  many  expressions  concerning  the  fall  of  British  tyranny, 
and  as  early  as  1753,  one  Le  Blanc  de  Villeneuve  wrote  "Le 
Pere  Indian."  We  find  the  students  of  Yale,  under  their 
ministerial  president,  presenting  Barnabas  BidwelFs  "The 
Mercenary  Match"  (1785).  In  another  direction,  an  ac 
tivity  strictly  modern  in  its  haste  has  been  noted  in  these 
words  by  the  historian,  Clapp:  "It  was  the  custom  in  the 
earlier  days  of  the  theatre  to  signalize  passing  events  by  such 
appropriate  notice  as  the  resources  of  the  stage  would  permit. 
The  proposed  launch  of  the  frigate  '  Constitution,'  which  was 
set  down  for  September  20,  1797,  was  regarded  by  Manager 
Hodgkinson  as  an  event  worthy  of  his  attention.  In  forty- 
eight  hours  he  completed  a  very  passable  piece,  and  an 
nounced  its  performance." 

These  several  records  will  show  that  the  first  definite 
tendency  to  note  in  American  drama  is  that  the  subject- 
matter,  when  it  drew  upon  American  life  and  manners, 
arranged  itself  in  accord  with  periods  in  American  history. 
There  were,  for  example,  definite  Indian  plays,1  some  smack- 

1  In  an  article  on  "The  American  Play,"  by  Laurence  Hutton 
(Lippincott,  37:  289-98,  March,  1886),  the  following  picturesque 
titles  are  recorded :  "  Sassacus;  or,  The  Indian  Wife  " ;  "  Kairrissah  "  ; 
"Oroloosa";  Outalassie";  "The  Pawnee  Chief";  "Onylda;  or, 
The  Pequot  Maid";  "Ontiata;  or,  The  Indian  Heroine";  "Osceola"; 
Oroonoka";  "Tuscatomba";  "Wacousta";  "Tutoona";  "Yem- 
See  also  A.  E.  Lancaster's  "Historical 


AMERICAN  DRAMA  FROM   1750  TO   1870    45 

ing  of  the  aboriginal.  But  to-day,  the  only  ones  that  strike 
the  memory  are  John  Brougham's  clever  "  Po-ca-hon-tas," 
John  Augustus  Stone's  "Metamora;  or,  The  Last  of  the 
Wampanoags,"  and  the  recent  attempt  made  by  Mary  Austin 
in  "  The  Arrow  Maker."  There  were  Revolutionary  dramas, 
ranging  from  John  D.  Burke's  "Bunker  Hill;  or,  The  Death 
of  Gen.  Warren"  (1798)  and  Dunlap's  "Andre"  (1798) 
to  W.  loor's  "  The  Battle  of  the  Eutaw  Springs,  and  Evac 
uation  of  Charleston;  or,  The  Glorious  14th  of  December, 
1782,"  first  presented  in  Charleston  during  1817.  The 
American  historical  plays  of  this  period  were  strictly  patri 
otic,  as  the  titles  will  imply;  they  were  heroic,  bombastic, 
and,  as  Lancaster  has  noted,  filled  with  "  romantic  traditions, 
local  annals,  individual  eccentricity,  temporary  sensation, 
spread-eagle  patriotism,  and  redskin  melodrama."  It  is 
enough  to  record  the  heroic  measures  of  Hugh  Henry  Brack- 
enridge's  "The  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill"  (1776),  or  the  same 
author's  dramatic  elegy  on  "The  Death  of  General  Mont 
gomery  at  the  Siege  of  Quebec"  (1777).  James  Nelson 
Barker  wrote  "The  Indian  Princess"  (1808)  and  "Super 
stition"  (1823),  and  M.  M.  Noah  tried  his  hand  at  "Marion; 
or,  The  Hero  of  Lake  George."  There  is  no  end  to  the  plays 
based  on  incidents  of  the  Revolution  or  of  the  War  of  1812.1 

American  Plays,"  Chautauquan,  31:  359-64  (1900).  James  Rees 
declares  that  the  reaction  against  Indian  plays  began  in  1846. 
G.  W.  P.  Custis  wrote  two  Indian  dramas:  "The  Indian  Prophecy" 
(1828)  and  "Pocahontas"  (1830). 

•  l  Note  for  example  C.  E.  Grice's  "The  Battle  of  New  Orleans"; 
George  Cookings'  "The  Conquest  of  Canada";  S.  B.  H.  Judah's 
"A  Tale  of  Lexington";  Oliver  B.  Bunce's  "Love  in  76"  (a  social 
rather  than  a  war  play);  and  countless  others  that  find  record  in 
Oscar  Wegelin's  "Early  American  Plays  (1714-1830)";  in  Robert 
F.  Roden's  "Later  American  Plays  (1831-1900)";  in  an  "Index  to 
American  Poetry  and  Plays  in  the  Collection  of  C.  Fiske  Harris" 
(1874);  in  "More  Early  American  Plays,"  Lit.  Collect.,  2:82-84;  in 
published  accounts  of  famous  collections  of  plays  owned  by  the  late 
Thos.  J.  McKee  (144  plays);  in  the  Brinley  American  Library 


46  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

And  the  striking  characteristic  of  many  of  these  plays  was 
that  in  them  representations  of  live  historical  personages 
were  introduced.  When  Victor  Mapes's  "Captain  Barring- 
ton"  (1903)  actually  brought  the  figure  of  Washington  on 
the  boards,  people  showed  surprise,  and,  to  the  credit  of  the 
actor  playing  the  role,  they  went  away  further  surprised 
that  their  patriotic  sensibilities  were  not  shocked,  for 
historic  characters  on  the  stage  flavor  of  the  Eden  Musee. 

But  at  close  range,  as  in  the  instance  of  Royall  Tyler,  our 
first  American  dramatist,  in  contradistinction  to  Robert 
Hunter,  whose  "Androboros"  was  the  first  dramatic  piece 
printed  in  America  (1714),  there  was  no  hesitancy  regarding 
historical  representation  or  political  allusions.  Concerning 
Dunlap's  heroic  blank- verse  drama  of  "Andre,"  as  Pro 
fessor  Matthews  has  pointed  out,  the  piece  was  produced  on 
March  30, 1798,  with  Arnold  and  Washington  still  alive,  and 
close  upon  the  incident  of  Andre's  hanging  in  1780.  Wash 
ington  was  introduced  as  one  of  the  characters.  The  type  of 
play  marking  the  Revolution  and  the  War  of  1812  was  one 
of  feeling,  in  which  Royalist  and  American  bandied  words. 

Mr.  Ford  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  as  early  as  1690 
the  African  slave  was  dealt  with  in  a  drama  by  one  Afara 
Behn,  a  play  called  "The  Widow  Ranter;  or,  Bacon  in 
Virginia."  But  the  most  portentous  drama  on  the  subject 
proved  to  be  the  dramatization  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  "Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin."  The  novel  was  published  in  1851,  and  was 
almost  immediately  prepared  for  the  stage  by  George  L. 
Aitkin,  and  first  presented  at  the  Troy  Museum  in  1852. 
This  popularity  undoubtedly  suggested  to  Dion  Boucicault 
the  spirit  for  his  "The  Octoroon;  or,  Life  in  Louisiana," 
which  was  produced  toward  the  end  of  1859. 

catalogue;  in  the  Beck  and  Duyckinck  Collections  (New  York 
Public  Library);  and  in  a  collection  owned  by  the  Brown  Univer 
sity  Library. 


AMERICAN  DRAMA  FROM   1750  TO   1870    47 

These  types  never  die  out.  Dunlap's  "Andre"  may  be 
balanced  by  Clyde  Fitch's  "Major  Andre";  J.  N.  Barker's 
"Superstition"  by  Herman  Hagerdorn's  version  of  "The 
Witch";  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  by  Edward  Sheldon's 
"The  Nigger."  The  differences  to  be  found  in  them  lie 
in  their  several  techniques,  and  in  their  economic  and  social 
approaches.  If  they  are  not  heard  of  to-day,  it  is  because 
their  vitality  was  momentary.  Take  such  titles  as  Charles 
Gayler's  "Bull  Run";  as  "The  Federal  Spy;  or,  Pauline  of 
the  Potomac"  and  "Union  Prisoners;  or,  the  Patriot's 
Daughter."  They  were  hammered  out  in  moments  of 
heat,  and  possessed  none  of  the  healthy  value  of  Gillette's 
"Secret  Service." 

The  next  characteristic  to  note  in  American  drama  is  the 
influence  of  Germany  upon  the  theatre,  not  only  with  the 
plays  of  Schiller,  but  more  particularly  with  the  prolific 
Kotzebue's  (1761-1819)  examples  of  melodrama.  We 
know,  for  instance,  how  thoroughly  influenced  William 
Dunlap1  (1766-1839)  became  by  such  pieces;  how  prone  he 
was  to  be  interested  in  drama  of  the  type  of  "Douglas "and 
"Venice  Preserved."  Hence,  a  large  part  of  his  time  was 
spent  in  translating  Kotzebue,2  after  he  had  gone  to  the 
trouble  of  mastering  German  for  that  special  purpose. 
Dunlap  was  our  first  dramatic  manipulator;  he  was  the 
first  theatre  manager  to  illustrate  how  readily  foreign  mate 
rial  might  be  turned  to  American  advantage,  without  costing 
much.3 

1  See    Publications    of    the    Dunlap    Society.     Much  valuable 
material  on  Dunlap  is  owned  by  the  New  York  Historical  Society. 
See  "Publications,"  vol.  14,  vol.  15,  vol.  24,  vol.  30,  for  Dunlap's 
diary. 

2  Charles   Smith  (b.  1768)  likewise  translated  Kotzebue.     See 
Wegelin. 

3  See  Frederick  H.  Wilkin's  "  Early  Influence  of  German  Litera 
ture  in  America,"  Americana    Germanica,   vol.   3,    no.  2,    1899, 


48  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

It  is  strange  that  Tyler  (1758-1826)  on  one  hand,  and  that 
Dunlap  on  the  other,  did  not  at  first  approach  the  theatre 
with  any  direct  intention  of  writing  for  it.  In  fact,  the 
former,  graduate  of  Harvard,  was  a  soldier  and  a  lawyer, 
and  had  never  been  to  the  theatre  in  his  life  until  sent  to 
New  York  on  diplomatic  service  relating  to  Shays'  Rebel 
lion.  Then  it  was  that  the  stage  took  hold  of  him,  and 
within  a  few  weeks  he  had  written  "The  Contrast"  (1787), 
crude  but  pleasing  to  the  tastes  of  Wignell,  low  comedian. 
Tyler  seems  to  have  been  quite  indifferent  to  his  success, 
though  he  immediately  proceeded  to  write  the  libretto  for 
a  comic  opera,  "May-day  in  Town;  or,  New  York  in  an 
Uproar,"  and  some  years  after,  in  1797,  he  was  ready  with 
"A  Good  Spec;  or,  Land  in  the  Moon,"  dealing  with  the 
Yazoo  scandal  in  Georgia. 

During  this  time,  Dunlap  was  in  Europe,  and  had  heard 
nothing  of  Tyler's  favor  with  "The  Contrast."  He  had 
been  studying  art  under  Benjamin  West,  and  though  he 
could  boast  of  a  liking  for  the  theatre  in  London,  withKemble, 
Mrs.  Siddons,  Palmer,  Mrs.  Jordan,  Mrs.  Abingdon,and  Miss 
Farren  in  the  ascendancy,  he  might  not  be  considered  to 
have  been  in  the  least  stage-struck.  But  Tyler  fired  his 
enthusiasm,  and  he  immediately  began  on  that  career  which 
was  to  cover  several  decades,  and  to  win  for  him  the  name  of 
"Father  of  the  American  Drama."  His  first  play  —  dis 
counting  his  youthful  dramatization  of  "  The  Arabian  Nights," 
—  was  "Modest  Soldier;  or,  Love  in  New  York,"  and  was 
never  mounted.  During  1789,  "The  Father;  or,  American 

pp.  103-205.  Note  also  the  following:  C.  F.  Brede's  "Schiller  on  the 
Philadelphia  Stage,  to  the  year  1830  ";  W.  H.  Carruth's  "  Schiller 
and  America";  E.  C.  Parry's  "Schiller  in  America."  Also  read 
Kuno  Francke's  "Schiller's  Message  to  Modern  Life,"  Atlantic,  95: 
611-16.  See  Ch.  Rabany's  "Kotzebue:  sa  Vie  et  son  Temps," 
Paris,  1893;  also  a  dissertation  by  Walter  Sellier  on  "Kotzebue  in 
England." 


AMERICAN  DRAMA  FROM   1750  TO   1870    49 

Shandy  ism"  was  given  at  the  New  York  John  Street  Theatre 

—  a  play  which  was  revised  in  1807  under  the  title  of  "  Father 
of  an  Only  Child."     It  was  after  this  that  he  became  man 
ager  of  a  theatre  —  at  first  with  Hallam  and  Hodgkinson, 
but  afterwards  by  himself.1 

There  is  a  character  in  "The  Contrast"  which  is  a  definite 
drawing  of  Yankee  eccentricities,  and  may  be  taken  as  the 
first  effort  of  an  American  dramatist  to  be  subtly  American. 
It  suggests  another  tendency  in  the  subject-matter  we  are 
tracing:  that  effort  to  catch  the  national  traits  marking 
the  American  people.  The  general  fault  in  this  type  of 
play  has  been  very  well  stated  by  Professor  Matthews:2 

"  An  apt  epigram  is  afloat  —  ascribed  to  Mr.  Boucicault 

—  to  the  effect  that  '  All  that  the  Americans  seem  to  recog 
nize  as  dramatic  here  is  the  caricature  of  character,  and  that 
is  what  the  successful  plays  are  —  caricature  of  eccentric 
character  set  in  a  weak  dramatic  framework/     This,  like 
most  epigrams,  is  a  smart  setting  of  a  half-truth.     Ameri 
cans  recognize  the  character  through  the  caricature,  accepting 
the  latter  only  for  lack  of  the  former.    The  want  is  want  of 
art  on  the  part  of  the  authors." 

But  though  such  further  efforts  as  those  of  Samuel  Wood- 
worth  in  "The  Forest  Rose;  or,  American  Farmers"  (1825) 

1  In  the  Dunlap  Soc.  edition  of  "The  Father;    or,  American 
Shandyism,"  with  an  introduction  by  Thos  J.  McKee,  there  is  a 
complete  bibliography  of  sixty-three  plays;    see  pp.  x-xi.     During 
1806,  Dunlap,  having  retired  from  active  theatre  work,  wrote  hia 
history  of  the  theatre,  and  then  published  four  volumes  comprising 
fifteen  of  his  plays;    he  also  resumed  his  work  as  an  artist.     An 
excellent  picture  of  Dunlap  forms  the  frontispiece  for  Wegelin's 
"Early  American  Plays."     See  also  the  Dunlap  Soc.  edition  of 
"Andre","    edited    by  Brander  Matthews    (1887).     Tyler's   "The 
Contrast"  was  reprinted  by  the  Dunlap  Soc.,  in  1887.    For  a  por 
trait  of  Tyler,  see  New  Eng.  Mag.,  1894,  n.s.,  9: 675. 

2  "The  American  on  the  Stage,"  Century,  18:  321-33,  July,  1879. 
See  also  Laurence  Button's  "The  American  Play,"  Lippincott,  37: 
289-98,  March,  1886. 


50  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

may  be  regarded  in  the  historical  evolution,  the  Yankee 
came,  not  by  way  of  literary  dramatic  expression,  but  by 
way  of  eccentric  American  acting.  If  one  should  desire  the 
real  cause  for  the  American  type,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
examine  into  the  nature  and  temperament  of  the  comedians, 
George  H.  Hill  and  James  H.  Hackett.1  The  fact  is,  Hackett 
assumed  the  role  of  Jonathan  Ploughboy  in  Woodworth's 
pastoral,  and  then,  being  identified  with  things  American, 
set  to  work  to  create  such  characterizations  as  Rip  Van 
Winkle,  Col  Nimrod  Wildfire  in  James  K.  Paulding's  "The 
Lion  of  the  West"  (1831), — which  proved  to  be  so  popular 
that  Bayle  Bernard  introduced  the  same  character  in  a 
drama  entitled  "The  Kentuckian," — and  three  Dutch  Gov 
ernors,  in  a  play  of  that  title,  which  Bernard  dramatized 
from  Irving's  "Knickerbocker  History." 

It  was  the  genius  of  the  actors,  therefore,  that  encouraged 
the  American  type.  Their  ability  to  create  an  accent,  as 
broad  and  as  humorous  as  their  French  or  Irish,  resulted  in 
a  following  for  the  eccentric  in  drama.  Hackett's  Yankee 
Solomon  Swap,  and  his  Horse-shoe  Robinson,  based  on  John 
P.  Kennedy's  novel,  were  dependent  absolutely  upon  the 
live  personality  of  the  player.  Anyone  reading  J.  S. 
Jones'  "  The  People's  Lawyer," 2  in  which  occurs  the  char 
acter  of  Solon  Shingle,  a  country  teamster,  would  hardly 
draw  from  it  what  audiences  drew  from  the  work  of  John 
E.  Owens,  or  of  George  H.  Hill  when  it  was  first  played  at 
the  Boston  National,  in  1839.  The  required  costume  of 
Solon  would  alone  measure  the  broadness  of  the  caricature: 
"Dark  drab  old-fashioned  surtout  with  capes,  Sheep's 

1  See  my  "Famous  Actor-Families  in  America"  for  a  chapter  on 
"The  Hacketts."     In  the  same  volume,  under  "The  Jeffersons," 
will  be  found  traced  the  evolution  of  "Rip  Van  Winkle."     See 
French's  Standard  Drama,  174,  for  Burke's  version. 

2  French's  Standard  Drama,  248.     See  also  in  the  same  series, 
173,  "The  Vermont  Wool-dealer,"  a  farce. 


AMERICAN  DRAMA  FROM  1750  TO  1870    51 

grey  trowsers,  lead  colored  striped  vest,  old  style  black 
stock,  cow-hide  boots,  broad-brimmed  low-crowned  hat, 
bald-headed  flaxen  wig."  The  same  latitude  is  to  be  found 
in  C.  A.  Logan's  "Yankee  Land"  1  which,  produced  at  the 
Park  Theatre  in  1834,  introduced  Hackett  as  Lot  Sap 
Sago. 

Tom  Taylor,  quick  to  fathom  the  popular  appeal,  now 
prepared  "Our  American  Cousin,"  in  which  Asa  Trenchard, 
the  rough,  whole-souled  Yankee,  was  pitted  against  Dun 
dreary.  This  was  as  surely  the  outcome  of  Hackett's  Yankee 
victories  as  Davy  Crockett  was  the  successor  of  Nimrod  Wild 
fire. 

The  land  resounded  with  the  Yankee  brogue,  or  with 
local  eccentricities,  North,  South,  East,  and  West.2  The 
first  of  Lowell's  "Biglow  Papers"  appeared  in  1846;  Mark 
Twain  fixed  indelibly  life  on  the  Mississippi  River  in  the 
early  '50's;  Bret  Harte,  in  1854,  went  to  California  to  catch 
the  mountain  dialect  and  the  mountain  manner.  In  the 
South,  there  was  a  whole  line  of  humorists,  including  Joseph 
G.  Baldwin,  Augustus  B.  Longstreet,  W.  T.  Thompson,  and 
J.  J.  Hooper,  who  caught  the  eccentric  character  of  the  Black 
Belt.  As  far  as  the  stage  was  concerned,  a  good  actor 
could  make  a  bad  play  go,  but,  because  of  the  flimsy  material, 
the  play  ceased  with  the  actor.  Playgoers  understand,  for 
example,  what  Mark  Twain  and  Charles  Dudley  Warner's 
"The  Gilded  Age"  suffered  from  the  hands  of  George  B. 
Dinsmore,  whb,  unauthorized,  put  Colonel  Sellers  in  a  play. 
Litigation  ensued,  and  the  manuscript  reverted  to  Mr. 
Clemens,  who  touched  it  up,  but  John  T.  Raymond  alone 

1  French's  Minor  Drama,  202. 

2  Modern  instances  of  typal  books  from  which  successful  drama 
tizations  have  been  made  are  plentiful;   for  example,  Annie  Hagen 
Rice's  "Mrs.  Wiggs  of  the  Cabbage  Patch"  and  Edward  Noyea 
Westcott's  "David  Harum." 


52  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

made  Sellers.1  According  to  Howells,  who  wrote  of  it  in 
1875,  the  play  was  "scarcely  more  than  a  sketch,  a  frame 
work  almost  as  naked  as  that  which  the  Italians  used  to  clothe 
on  with  their  commedia  d'arte;  and  it  [was]  as  unlike  good 
literature  as  many  other  excellent  acting  plays.  ...  [It  was] 
true,  in  its  broad  way,  to  American  conditions,  and  [was] 
a  fair  and  just  satire  upon  our  generally  recognized  social 
and  political  corruptions."  2 

Such  social  satire,  slightly  vulgarized,  was  to  be  found  in 
B.  E.  Woolf  s"The  Mighty  Dollar"  (1875), which,  as  we  have 
said,  W.  J.  Florence  made  so  famous  by  his  characterization 
of  Judge  Bardwell  Slote,  a  speculative  drama  whose  modern 
counterpart  some  critics  detected  in  W.  H.  Crane's  delin 
eation  of  Hannibal  Rivers  in  "The  Senator"  (1890).  These 
national  types  narrowed  down  to  local  idols,  and  no  more 
popular  character  was  known  to  the  stage  of  1848  than  M ose, 
a  New  York  Fire  Boy,  whom  Chanfrau  personated  in  "A 
Glance  at  New  York."  Reading  it  through,  one  discovers 
strange  local  allusions  marking  the  time,  but  more  than 
that  one  detects  the  identical  movement  so  familiar  in  the 
humor  of  modern  melodrama.  I  imagine  Mose  might  slip 
into  the  cast  of  "Nellie,  the  Beautiful  Cloak  Model"  with 
perfect  impunity.  It  is  the  tough  type  later  dealt  with  in 
Townsend's  "Chimmie  Fadden"  and  in  Owen  Kildare's 
"My  Mamie  Rose,"  but  with  none  of  the  naturalism  of 
present  day  technique.  It  was  familiar  rough-and-tumble 
drama,  with  glaring  pathos,  coarse  humor,  and  burlesque 
interruptions. 

But  already  we  note  this  fact  concerning  the  regard  of  the 
American  dramatist,  in  his  effort  to  create  the  American 

1  See  chapter  on  Raymond  by  Franklyn  Fyles,  contained  in  the 
second   volume   of   McKay   and   Wingate's    "Famous   American 
Actors  of  To-day." 

2  Atlantic,  35:  749,  June,  1875. 


AMERICAN  DRAMA  FROM   1750  TO   1870    53 

type  he  was  obliged  to  create  American  condition.  And  we 
soon  find  the  trail  of  society  drama  sketching  the  manners 
and  customs  of  distinct  decades.  That  is  why,  in  reading 
the  early  American  dramas,  it  were  well  to  connect  Mrs. 
Mowatt's  "  Fashion  "  (1845)  and  Mrs.  Sidney  F.  Bateman's 
"Self"  (1856)  with  the  reading  of  Fanny  Kemble's  New 
York  experiences  and  with  the  travels  of  Tyrone  Power. 
John  Brougham  came  to  New  York  around  1842,  and  he 
used  to  shoot  birds  in  the  woods  near  Twenty-third  Street, 
and  to  take  suburban  drives  around  the  old  reservoir  on 
Forty-second  Street,  where  the  New  York  Public  Library 
now  stands. 

The  current  papers  seemed  surprised  over  the  facility  of 
ordinary  dialogue  used  in  these  plays  —  dialogue  containing 
local  allusion  of  the  street  and  parlor  of  that  time,  intro 
ducing  the  conventional  English  dialect,  exploiting  the 
parvenu  desire  to  utter  French  phrases,  making  use  of  negro 
dialect  as  incongruous  as  that  resorted  to  by  Poe  in  "  The 
Gold  Bug."  One  may  trace  the  period  by  the  references  to 
civic  improvements,  as  when  Mrs.  Bateman  makes  one  of 
her  characters  speak  of  horses  slipping  on  the  Russ  pave 
ments.  There  is  a  slight  touch  of  Harriet  Martineau's 
political  economy  in  attitudes  strictly  feminine. 

At  the  time  of  Mrs.  Mowatt's  "Fashion,"  New  York 
whirled  around  Canal  Street.  All  society  drama  seemed  to 
know  but  one  situation :  the  mad  rush  after  money  and  social 
prestige  at  the  moment  when  financial  ruin  threatened  a 
family.  It  sought  to  be  satire  aimed  particularly  at  the  effort 
to  be  English,  for  the  American  is  introduced  breezily  and 
roughly, —  note  Adam  Trueman,  the  farmer,  in  "Fashion." 
Lower  Broadway  was  the  promenade,  with  its  busses  and 
carriages  rolling  out  into  the  country  —  possibly  to  Central 
Park  —  carrying  parties  for  recreation.  The  theatres  were 
clustered  around  the  lower  end  of  New  York  when  "  Fashion" 


54  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

was  presented  at  the  Park  Theatre  (March  24,  1845), 
opposite  the  old  Astor  House  on  Vesey  Street.  Even  then 
theatrical  life  had  flowed  from  the  Battery  to  Park  Row;  it 
was  soon  to  creep  up  Broadway,  the  Wallacks  going  from 
Brougham's  Lyceum  near  Broome  Street  on  Broadway  to 
Thirteenth  Street,  thence  to  Thirtieth.  New  York  theatres 
have  moved  with  the  parks.  At  one  time,  Twenty-third 
Street  was  considered  a  central  location  for  drama,  but  now 
Forty-second  Street  seems  to  be  the  established  point  of 
activity.  Theatrical  conditions  have  enlarged  since  the 
days  of  "  Fashion, "  and  so  has  social  life. 

Poe1  was  not  quite  in  accord  with  the  "modern  drama" 
of  his  day,  yet,  despite  his  prejudiced  feeling,  his  comments 
anent  "Fashion"  have  truth  in  them.  If  I  quote  him  at 
length,  it  is  to  illustrate  how  aloof  he  was,  nevertheless,  from 
the  true  spirit  of  the  theatre,  even  though  his  literary  sense 
measured  aptly  the  "  monstrous  inartisticalities."  He  wrote: 

"The  day  has  at  length  arrived  when  men  demand  ra 
tionalities  in  place  of  conventionalities.  It  will  no  longer  do 
to  copy,  even  with  absolute  accuracy,  the  whole  tone  of  even 
so  ingenious  and  really  spirited  a  thing  as  the  *  School  for 
Scandal/  2  It  was  comparatively  good  in  its  day,  but  it 
would  be  positively  bad  at  the  present  day,  and  imitations 
of  it  are  inadmissible  at  any  day. 

"  Bearing  in  mind  the  spirit  of  these  observations,  we  may 
say  that  '  Fashion*  is  theatrical  but  not  dramatic.  It  is  a 
pretty  well-arranged  selection  from  the  usual  routine  of 
stage  characters,  and  stage  manoeuvres  —  but  there  is  not 
one  particle  of  any  nature,  beyond  greenroom  nature,  about 

1  The  over-conscientiousness  of  Poe's  criticism  is  seen  in  his  con 
fession  (Broadway  Journal,  April  5,  1845)  that  since  its  opening  he 
had  been  to  Mrs.  Mowatt's  "Fashion"  every  night,  in  order  to 
determine  the  full  extent  of  its  merits  and  demerits. 

2  See  "Later  Criticism"  (V)  in  Virginia  edition  of  his  works. 


AMERICAN  DRAMA  FROM   1750  TO  1870    55 

it.  No  such  events  ever  happened  in  fact,  or  ever  could 
happen,  as  happen  in  'Fashion/  Nor  are  we  quarreling, 
now,  with  the  mere  exaggeration  of  character  or  incident; 
were  this  all,  the  play,  although  bad  as  comedy,  might  be 
good  as  farce,  of  which  the  exaggeration  of  possible  incon 
gruities  is  the  chief  element.  Our  faultfinding  is  on  the 
score  of  deficiency  in  verisimilitude  —  in  natural  art  —  that 
is  to  say,  in  art  based  on  the  natural  laws  of  man's  heart  and 
understanding." 

It  is  this  violent  distortion  which  marks  Boucicault's 
"The  Streets  of  New  York"  (1857),  Daly's  "Under  the 
Gaslight"  (1867),  and  Howard's  "Saratoga"  (1870), equally 
as  lacking  in  verisimilitude  as  "Fashion"  or  as  "  Self."  In 
contrast  with  these,  Langdon  Mitchell's  "The  New  York 
Idea"  (1906)  is  a  striking  and  excellent  example  of  the 
progress  made  in  American  social  drama.  The  early  stage 
cared  nothing  for  invention  or  plot,  and  its  wit  lay  in  carica 
ture.  Mr.  Mitchell's  comedy1  is  good  reading;  it  has  literary 
tone,  and,  above  all,  it  lacks  grotesque  wit,  substituting 
instead  brilliant  humor. 

The  progress  of  the  American  theatre  is  marked  by  the 
manager  as  well  as  by  the  actor.  John  Brougham,2  of 
Irish  extraction,  did  much  for  the  stage  practically  as  well  as 
literarily.  His  mind  was  prolific  in  the  interests  of  W.  E. 
Burton,  who  was  himself  a  devotee  of  the  pen.  Comedies, 
farces,  melodramas,  comediettas,  dramatizations,  especially 
of  Dickens,  spectaculars  and  burlesques  are  to  the  credit  of 
Brougham,3  yet  not  one  of  his  plays  has  had  vitality 
enough  to  hold  the  boards.  Yet  in  the  '50's,  no  man 
was  more  prominent  than  he  —  writer,  manager,  and 
actor. 

1  Printed  privately. 

2  See  Life  by  William  Winter;  see  also  the  latter's  "Other  Days." 
8  See  Wegelin. 


56  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Succeeding  him  came  the  Wallack  galaxy,  J.  W.  Wallack 
revising  Congreve's  "  Love  for  Love, "  and  Lester  Wallack 
(1820-1888)  writing  "Two  to  One;  or,  The  King's  Visit" 
(1854),  "First  Impressions"  (1856),  "The  Veteran"  (1859), 
"The  Romance  of  a  Poor  Young  Man"  (1859),  "Central 
Park"  (1861),  and  "Rosedale"  (1863).  Close  upon  the 
brilliancy  of  Wallack's  stock  companies  came  Palmer's 
Union  Square  Theatre  Company,1  which  carried  its  prestige 
to  the  Madison  Square  Theatre  and  thence  to  the  Lyceum, 
when  Daniel  Frohman  came  into  the  horizon.  In  the  mean 
time,  Augustin  Daly  (1838-1899),  in  1862,  adapted  "Leah, 
the  Forsaken"  from  Mosenthal,  and  therewith  began  his 
career,  which  was  to  include  his  pruning  and  arranging  of 
the  Elizabethan  drama,  and  his  adaptations  of  French  pieces 
like  "Frou-Frou."  Such  a  survey  as  is  here  given  cannot 
ignore  the  managerial  regime  of  Laura  Keene,  or  the  drama 
tization  of  "Camille"  by  Matilda  Heron  (1856). 

But  Wallack  with  his  English  proclivities,  and  Palmer  with 
his  numerous  D'Ennery  and  Sardou  adaptations  by  A.  R. 
Cazauran,  which  were  deprived  of  social  significance,  and 
Daly  with  his  German  dependence,  might  hardly  be  deemed 
influences  on  the  American  dramatist,  until  1870  brought 
Bronson  Howard  to  the  field.  Yet  these  managers  had 
much  to  say  concerning  the  American  drama.  In  1893, 
Palmer2  wrote,  apropos  of  Bartley  Campbell  and  his  contem 
poraries  : 

"The  prominent  evil  tendency  of  the  American  writer  has 
been  to  look  for  his  types  among  his  countrymen  of  the  baser 
sort,  who  never  by  any  possibility  pronounce  English  words 
properly  and  who  seem  to  take  the  greatest  pains  to  speak 

1  See  The  American  Magazine,  9:1-23,  Nov.,  1888,  an  article 
on  Palmer  by  George  Edgar  Montgomery.     The  Boston  Museum 
was  dominated  by  the  personality  of  manager  Field. 

2  Forum,  15:614-20. 


Photo,  by  Aims  Dupont 


AUGUSTIX  DALY 


AMERICAN  DRAMA  FROM   1750  TO   1870    57 

slang  and  utter  vulgarisms,  and  to  act  as  if  good  manners 
were  a  reproach  instead  of  an  accomplishment." 

Augustin  Daly  became  general,  after  specifying  that  the 
American  dramatist  of  his  day  sought  to  emulate  the  master 
pieces  of  modern  fiction.  He  wrote  (1886) : 

"Boker  might  have  idealized  the  Kentucky  tragedy  in 
stead  of  the  Rimini  drama,  and  Bird  might  have  made  his 
Spartacus  an  Indian  Chief  —  but  our  national  theatre  has 
lost  nothing  by  their  omission.  The  present  masterpieces 
of  the  stage,  in  every  tongue,  are  pictures  of  the  passions  of 
mankind  in  general." 

Finally,  I  quote  the  opinions  of  Boucicault,1  whose  dramas 
are  prolific  and  whose  plots  are  ingenious  —  Boucicault, 
the  sentimentalist,  whose  Irish  humor  was  not  native,  but 
who  directed  himself  into  native  channels  because  he  was 
enough  of  the  playwright  to  give  the  public  what  was 
opportune,  like  "The  Relief  of  Lucknow"  (1858).  He 
deplored  "the  philosophical  school  of  sociology,"  and  dep 
recated  the  naturalism  of  Zola  and  the  realism  of  Ibsen. 
Given  always  to  broad  expressions  of  opinion,  he  wrote  (1890) : 

"  Tragedy  and  high  comedy  will  always  be  held  in  respect 
on  the  future  American  stage,  but  it  seems  probable  that  the 
drama  of  modern  life,  the  reflex  of  the  period,  will  prevail 
over  every  other  kind  of  entertainment.  This  drama  will 
present  a  character,  or  a  group  of  characters,  not  a  compli 
cated  or  sensational  action,  affording  a  physiological  study 
by  way  of  illustration,  not  by  way  of  description." 

Thus  spoke  those  most  prominent  in  the  theatrical  field 
before  the  advent  of  Charles  and  Daniel  Frohman,  before 
the  actual  period  when  the  American  dramatist  found  it  an 
advantage  to  be  American.  There  are  other  tendencies  in 
the  development,  to  be  noted  in  the  next  chapter,  but  this 
summary  will  be  sufficient  to  indicate  that,  though  the  body 

1  Arena,  2:  641-52,  Nov.,  1890. 


58  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

of  American  drama  is  large,  its  form  is  out  of  fashion  and  is  of 
interest  simply  as  history  or  as  a  measure  of  histrionic  ability. 

We  do  not  repudiate  the  development  of  American  drama 
before  1870,  but  we  do  not  rank  it  as  high.  We  revere  the 
names  of  Booth  and  Barrett,  of  Jefferson  and  Holland,  of 
Davenport,  Gilbert,  and  Clarke,  of  Laura  Keene  and  Char 
lotte  Cushman.  But  the  drama  in  those  days  developed 
under  peculiar  social  and  economic  conditions  which  are 
over;  the  type,  the  form,  and  the  manner  are  over. 

We  are  sure  to  find  the  average  and  the  below-the-average 
in  each  and  every  age.  There  was  as  much  mediocre  stage 
material  before  1870  as  after,  in  fact  more.  I  only  question 
a  production  in  the  light  of  what  I  know  of  my  time;  I  test 
its  artistic  quality  by  whatever  culture  I  may  have;  I 
challenge  its  morality  by  what  I  have  learned  of  the  moral 
atmosphere  in  which  I  live.  No  critic  should  undervalue  or 
overvalue.  But  the  service  of  an  historical  perspective  in 
such  a  survey  as  this  lies  in  the  conclusions  which  result. 
For  one  who  has  read  dramatic  history  aright  can  see  that 
the  modern  theatre  calls  for  different  acting  because  of  the 
change  in  stage  technique.  The  business  of  the  theatre  to 
day  cannot  be  managed  as  Booth  mismanaged  his  theatre  in 
New  York.  If  the  drama  often  lies  in  the  hands  of  money 
changers,  such  condition  is  a  business  condition  which  has  to 
alter  before  art  may  flourish.  The  drama  must  pass  through 
its  evolution,  through  its  periods  of  types  and  conditions. 
If  people  are  interested  in  social  reform,  it  must  reflect 
society.  That  seems  to  be  where  it  is  to-day. 

Before  1870,  the  American  dramatist,  as  we  take  him  in 
the  studies  to  follow,  did  not  exist.  But  effort  toward 
Americanism  did  find  root,  even  as  early  as  Royall  Tyler, 
and  in  tracing  this  persistent  effort  is  to  be  found  the  chief 
value  of  any  literal  historical  survey. 


CHAPTER  IV 

OUR   LITERARY   AND   OUR   CLOSET-DRAMA 
I 

DRAMATIC  history  clearly  demonstrates  to  the  student  that 
while  it  is  not  necessary  for  a  play  to  be  literature,  any  play 
that  is  true  to  the  essentials  of  that  segment  of  life  with 
which  it  deals  cannot  help  but  be  literature.  Yet  neither 
proposition  implies  that  in  order  to  be  literature,  drama 
needs  must  sacrifice  its  fundamental  moving  and  progres 
sive  character. 

Tradition  creates  stolid  impressions,  and  after  1830, 
when  Hugo  and  Dumas  set  the  dramatic  pace,  tragedy  on 
every  hand  was  couched  in  nothing  but  a  grandiloquent 
manner.  Every  one  copied  the  Elizabethans,  and  it  was 
considered  false  to  theatrical  standards  to  select  any  sub 
ject  for  stage  treatment  that  would  not  be  aloof  and  most 
likely  historical.  Our  American  authors  were  interested 
in  foreign  literature;  Longfellow,  Lowell,  and  later,  Bayard 
Taylor,  showed  enthusiasm  for  continental  ideas,  mediaeval 
or  modern. 

In  one  respect,  the  literary  drama  in  America  flourished 
as  it  did  in  England  —  through  the  support  and  interest 
of  the  actor.  But  while  the  American  literary  type  was 
nought  in  comparison  with  the  British  type,  Edwin  Forrest 
in  magnitude  was  no  inferior  to  Macready  and  Irving, 
who  stood  sponsors  for  Browning  and  Tennyson.  Except 
for  the  historical  perspective,  this  phase  of  American  drama 


60  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

might  be  dismissed  in  a  general  way,  but  Forrest,  through 
power  and  animal  magnetism,  carried  many  a  verbose  text 
across  the  footlights.  His  whole  method  as  an  actor  en 
couraged  such  pieces  as  Stone's  "Metamora,"  Bird's  "The 
Gladiator,"  and  Conrad's  "Jack  Cade." 

Yet,  while  there  is  a  certain  rolling  sonorousness  in  these, 
they  are  not  native  in  the  sense  that  the  subject  matter 
was  native  to  the  soil.  They  were  imitative,  as  John  Howard 
Payne  was  imitative  in  "Brutus;  or,  the  Fall  of  Tarquin" 
(1818).  The  old  English  drama  was  the  model,  while  Italy, 
Spain,  or  Germany  appeared  to  be  the  locality.  In  choice 
of  subject  alone,  these  literary  aspirants  for  the  drama 
exhibited  their  preconceived  notions  as  to  tragedy.  The 
Southerners  who  wrote  dramas  knew  nothing  outside  of 
foreign  realms.  A.  J.  Requier  became  author  of  "The 
Spanish  Exile"  (1842);  George  Henry  Miles  wrote  "Mo 
hammed"  (1850),  "De  Soto"  (1853),  and  "Senor  Valiente" 
(1858);  Caroline  Lee  Hentz  published  a  five-act  tragedy, 
"De  Lara;  or,  The  Moorish  Bride"  (1843);  while  Isaac 
Harby,  in  the  stream  of  classic  tradition  and  of  Kotzebue 
influence,  wrote  "Alexander  Severus"  (1807)  and  " Alberti" 
(1819).1 

What  Professor  Matthews  says  of  England  may  very 
well  be  said  of  America:  that  its  "literature  is  strewed  with 
wrecked  tragedies,  lofty  enough  in  aspiration,  but  pitifully 
lacking  in  imagination."  If  these  pieces  found  their  way 
to  the  stage,  they  did  so  because  they  were  nurtured  by  the 
mistaken  beliefs  of  some  manager.  When  J.  W.  Wallack 
was  in  charge  of  The  National,  he  had  faith  in  the  dra 
matic  powers  of  Nathaniel  P.  Willis,  but,  save  in  "  Tortesa, 
the  Usurer"  (1839),  Willis  cannot  be  said  to  have  approached 
the  requirements  of  the  stage.  Even  in  "Tortesa"  he  was 

1  See  Bibliography:  "Southern  Fiction  Prior  to  1860."  James 
Gibson  Johnson,  Charlottesville,  Va.,  1909. 


OUR  LITERARY  AND   CLOSET-DRAMA     61 

undramatic  though  oratorical;  he  had  read  Hugo,  and  he 
knew  his  Shylock  and  his  Juliet.  In  fact,  these  early  authors 
who  wrote  literary  or  closet-dramas  were  so  steeped  in 
Shakespeare  that  echoes  of  the  great  poet's  lines  are  easily 
detected  everywhere.  Boker's  "  Francesca  da  Rimini,"  his 
most  suitably  theatrical  play,  is  simply  riddled  with  Eliza 
bethan  harmonies  —  lines  barely  changed  save  to  make 
the  verse  weaker,  and  containing  the  identical  sentiment 
put  in  a  less  inevitable  way. 

The  Knickerbocker,  the  New  England,  the  Philadelphia, 
and  the  Southern  schools,  therefore,  held  the  same  notions 
regarding  the  drama  as  a  readable  and  as  an  actable  medium. 
The  literary  man's  attitude  toward  the  theatre  was  that  of 
the  dilettante;  it  was  amateurish,  though  there  was  a  sincere 
desire  on  his  part  to  excel  in  the  art.  But  the  litterateur  had 
a  mistaken  notion  as  to  the  province  of  the  theatre,  and 
he  was  not  willing  to  serve  apprenticeship.  Besides  which, 
in  his  choice  of  subject,  he  was  prompted  by  the  old-fashioned 
broadness  of  acting,  and  he  wrote  romantic  melodrama  — 
romantic  in  a  sort  of  external  psychology,  but  statuesque 
in  action.  That  notion  of  the  heroic  has  persisted,  as  we 
shall  see  when  we  come  to  consider  the  Tragic  Spirit  and  the 
American  people. 

It  is  false,  however,  to  separate  literature  and  drama. 
While  it  is  legitimate  to  accept  the  closet-drama  as  a  form 
in  itself,  it  is  not  legitimate  to  consider  it  as  in  any  way 
necessary  to  the  theatre.  It  is  a  hybrid  type  which  Professor 
Matthews  rightly  notes  appeared  and  appears  only  at  times 
when  literature  and  the  theatre  are  divorced.1  Every  poet 
who  has  written  a  play  has  intended  it  for  the  stage,  but 
he  has  approached  his  task  wrongly.  And  so  we  begin  to 
realize  the  hopelessness  of  clriming  the  closet-drama  as  part 

1  See  "  The  Legitimacy  of  the  Closet-Drama."  Brander  Matthews. 
Scribner's,  February,  1908. 


62  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

of  the  strength  of  the  theatre,  when  we  read  H.  A.  Beers' 
opinion  of  it: 

"  [The  closet-dramatist]  need  not  sacrifice  truth  of  char 
acter  and  probability  of  plot  to  the  need  of  highly  accentu 
ated  situations.  He  does  not  have  to  consider  whether  a 
speech  is  too  long,  too  ornate  in  diction,  too  deeply  thought 
ful  for  recitation  by  an  actor.  If  the  action  lags  at  certain 
points,  let  it  lag.  In  short,  as  the  aim  of  the  closet-dramatist 
is  other  than  the  playwright's,  so  his  methods  may  be 
independent/' 

This  statement  gives  a  false  impression  of  the  relation 
between  literature  and  drama;  one  is  a  principle  of  thought 
and  expression;  the  other  is  a  form  of  thought  and  expres 
sion.  To  deny  that  drama  cannot  come  within  the  category 
of  literature  is  to  deny  that  drama  may  ever  have  a  claim 
to  permanence.  True  literature  is  unconscious  excellence. 
Shakespeare  wrote  plays  rather  than  poetry,  yet  the  poetry 
in  them  preserves  them,  and  they  live  because,  though  the 
action  is  generally  conventional,  the  spiritual  quality  and 
the  mental  value  are  there  without  hurting  the  movement 
of  the  whole.  Modern  drama,  alone,  refutes  the  claim  that 
closet-plays  are  closet-plays  simply  because  they  aim  to  be 
literature.  Effective  stage  pieces,  as  a  rule,  have  not  been 
pleasing  to  read,  but  that  is  the  fault  of  the  literary  sense 
of  the  author  who  has  aimed  for  appreciation  through  out 
ward  theatrical  effect. 

There  are  two  sentences  in  Professor  Matthews'  "The 
Literary  Merit  of  Our  Latter-day  Drama"  1  which  point 
to  cardinal  weaknesses  in  the  closet-drama.  He  claims  that 
"a  dramatist  who  fails  to  please  the  play-going  public  of 
his  own  time  will  never  have  another  chance,"  and  again 
he  writes  that  "style  is  the  great  antiseptic,  no  doubt,  but 
style  cannot  bestow  life  on  the  still-born."  In  both  of  these 

1  See  "Inquiries  and  Opinions." 


OUR  LITERARY  AND   CLOSET-DRAMA     63 

respects,  closet-dramas  have  failed,  and,  therefore,  as  a  stage 
consideration,  they  exert  no  influence.  Managers  lose  when 
ever  they  mount  such  plays,  for  usually  literature  of  this 
kind  cares  nothing  for  the  practical  limitation  of  technique 
or  of  stage  accessory.  If  it  is  not  a  drama  of  ideas,  it  is  a 
drama  of  imagery ;  it  is  discursive  rather  than  concentrated ; 
it  is  slow-moving  rather  than  active;  it  is  poetic  rather  than 
dramatic.  « 

Longfellow,  after  seeing  "The  Vicar  of  Wakefield"  in 
dramatization,  was  convinced  of  the  superiority  of  dramatic 
representation  over  narrative.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
was  never  keenly  alive  to  the  actions  and  reactions  of  life, 
which  manifest  themselves  in  active  situations  rather  than 
in  pictures.  We  find  him,  therefore,  writing  as  early  as 
1845:  "Felt  more  than  ever  to-day  the  difference  between 
my  ideal  home-world  of  Poetry,  and  the  outer,  actual,  tan 
gible  Prose-world.  When  I  go  out  of  the  precincts  of  my 
study,  down  the  village  street  to  college,  how  the  scaffolding 
about  the  Palace  of  Song  comes  rattling  and  clattering  down." 
"The  Spanish  Student"  (1843)  and  the  "Tragedies"  failed 
to  find  their  way  to  the  stage. 

In  other  words,  the  closet-dramatist  has  suffered  because 
he  has  been  too  contemplative  on  one  hand,  and  because, 
on  the  other,  he  has  placed  too  much  attention  upon  orna 
mentation.  W.  D.  Howells  and  Henry  James  reduced  the 
oratorical  to  terms  of  modern  prose  rhythm,  and  in  their 
dialogues  they  came  "very  near  the  requirements  of  the 
stage.  Mr.  Howells'  farces  have  all  been  published,1  and 
their  literary  flavor  once  more  suggests  to  us  a  weakness 
in  the  argument  that  literature  and  drama  are  incompatible. 
The  fault  with  Mr.  Howells  lies  in  the  fact  that  his  outlook 
upon  life  is  narrative,  and  that  he  is  too  faithful  in  noting 

1  See  partial  list  in  Roden's  "Later  American  Plays."  See  also 
catalogues  of  Harper  &  Bros. 


64  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

small  conversation.  But  Mr.  Howells  has  not  been  an  in 
fluence  in  American  drama,  however  much  his  interest  has 
been  centered  on  the  stage.  In  1877,  Lawrence  Barrett 
appeared  in  his  "Counterfeit  Presentment,"  and  in  1878 
appeared  in  his  "  Yorick's  Love." 

But,  like  Henry  James  and  Hamlin  Garland,  Mr.  Howells 
has  a  theoretical  view  of  drama.  All  of  them  are  interested 
in  the  stage  from  the  narrative  and  inventive  standpoints; 
they  are  pleased  with  the  inventions,  the  ideas,  the  character 
izations,  the  moral  problems,  the  philosophy,  the  social 
attitudes,  but  the  dramatic  manner  does  not  concern  them. 
They  disdain  the  theatrical,  not  realizing  that  consistent 
theatricalism  may  enter  the  realms  of  literature.  Charles 
Klein,  for  instance,  has  misused  theatricalism,  though  his 
plays  have  been  popular,  and  in  many  of  their  situations 
effective.  In  no  way  are  his  plays  closet-dramas;  they 
are  thoroughly  actable.  But  he  oftentimes  perverts  what 
the  literary  dramatist  fails  to  use  at  all. 

I  shall  later  speak  of  the  dramatic  sense  possessed  both 
by  Mr.  Howells  and  Mr.  James;  even  in  their  narrative, 
they  realize  the  essence  of  comedy  —  that  essence  which 
would  be  of  greatest  benefit  to  the  American  stage  were  it 
possessed  by  the  American  dramatist.  In  comparison  with 
the  early  literary  coteries,  however,  Howells  and  James  are 
nearer  the  real  spirit  of  the  modern  drama. 

The  popular  play  is  being  published  to-day  for  a  reading 
public  eager  to  have  it;  and  gradually  the  literary  following 
is  coming  to  realize  that  simply  because  of  the  fact  that  a 
drama  is  actable  is  no  reason  that  is  it  not  also  readable. 
Those  who  try  to  pore  through  Sheridan  Knowles'  "Brutus" 
or  Conrad's  "Jack  Cade"  will  realize  how  much  of  the  suc 
cess  was  due  to  acting;  in  fact  how  much  of  the  dialogue 
was  written  for  the  actor.  Henry  Arthur  Jones  is  a  great 
believer  in  the  literary  value  of  modern  drama,  upholding 


OUR  LITERARY  AND   CLOSET-DRAMA     65 

the  idea  that  if  a  play  is  truly  alive,  it  must  be  literature.1 
And  his  belief  finds  full  expression  in  the  following : 

"If  you  have  faithfully  and  searchingly  studied  your 
fellow-citizens;  if  you  have  selected  from  amongst  them 
those  characters  that  are  interesting  in  themselves,  and  that 
also  possess  an  enduring  human  interest;  if,  in  studying 
these  interesting  personalities,  you  have  severely  selected, 
from  the  mass  of  their  sayings  and  doings  and  impulses, 
those  words  and  deeds  and  tendencies  which  mark  them 
at  once  as  individuals  and  as  types;  if  you  have  then  recast 
and  re-imagined  all  the  materials ;  if  you  have  cunningly 
shaped  them  into  a  story  of  progressive  and  accumulative 
action;  if  you  have  done  all  this,  though  you  may  not  have 
used  a  single  word  but  what  is  spoken  in  ordinary  American 
intercourse  to-day,  I  will  venture  to  say  that  you  have 
written  a  piece  of  live  American  literature." 


II 

All  of  our  literary  men  have  been  interested  in  the  theatre. 
One  of  the  Dunlap  publications  2  gives  opening  addresses  in 
verse  written  by  Washington  Irving,  Fitz-Greene  Halleck, 
Bret  Harte,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  and  others  on  occasions 
when  theatres  were  opened.  Percy  Mackaye  is  a  recent 
type  of  the  occasional  poet,  having  read  lines  when  the 
corner-stone  for  the  New  Theatre  was  laid.  But  our  literary 
men,  whether  of  America  or  of  England,  have  always  had  a 
hidden  contempt  for  the  theatre.  This  was  largely  because 
they  identified  drama  with  the  theatrical  life  which  supports 
it.  Washington  Irving's  interest  in  the  theatre  brought 

1  See  a  lecture  by  Jones  delivered  at  Yale  University,  entitled 
"Literature  and  the  Modern  Drama;"   published  in  the  Atlantic, 
December,  1906,  pp.  796-807. 

2  No.  3,  1867. 


66  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

him  in  close  touch  with  John  Howard  Payne,  who  was  abetted 
in  his  career  by  Edmund  Kean.  Payne  had  not  only  been 
an  actor  himself,  becoming  a  friend  of  Talma,  but  he  was 
brought  up  in  the  school  of  Home's  "  Douglas." 

John  Augustus  Stone  (1801-1834), 1  likewise,  was  an  actor, 
and  approached  play  writing  from  the  inside.  His  "Meta- 
mora"  took  the  prize  offered  by  Forrest  for  the  best  American 
play.  Where  this  actor  was  beneficial  to  the  native  play 
wright  was  in  the  fact  that  he  paid  well  for  what  he  wanted, 
while  the  American  manager  of  that  day  could  bring  plays 
from  England,  or  translate  continental  successes,  with  little 
or  no  expense. 

Forrest  stood  sponsor  for  Richard  Penn  Smith,  author 
of  "Caius  Harms,"  and  likewise  presented  Robert  Mont 
gomery  Bird's  (1803-1854)  "The  Gladiator"  (1831)  in  a 
bold  and  impressive  manner.  The  Philadelphia  physician, 
who  was  likewise  a  novelist,  wrote  in  addition  "The  Broker 
of  Bogota."  2  But  perhaps  Forrest's  most  powerful  repre 
sentation,  because  of  its  democratic  spirit,  was  his  role  in 
Robert  T.  Conrad's  (1810-1858) 3  "Jack  Cade;  or,  The 
Bondman  of  Kent"  (1868),  a  play  of  patriotic  scope.  His 
acting  in  this  piece  was  fierce  with  "  the  most  intense  feeling 
of  the  wrongs  and  charms  of  the  oppressed  common  people." 
One  contemporary  account  speaks  of  his  being  "a  sort  of 
dramatic  Demosthenes,  rousing  the  cowardly  and  slum- 

1  Stone  produced  a  tragedy  "Fauntleroy,"  Charleston,  S.  C.; 
he  also  wrote  "The  Demoniac;"  "Tancred;"  "The  Restoration;  or, 
The  Diamond  Cross;"  "The  Ancient  Briton"  (1833);    and  "The 
Golden  Fleece."    He  killed  himself. 

2  His  other  dramas  were  "Oraloosa"  (1832);  "The  Cowled  Lover;" 
"Caridorf."     See  Wemyss:    "Twenty-six  Years    of    the    Life   of 
an  Actor." 

3  Conrad   was   a   Philadelphia    lawyer.      James    E.    Murdoch 
presented  his  "Conrad  of  Naples"  (1832).     "Jack  Cade"  was  first 
given  by  Addams  aa  "Aylmere."    Conrad  accepted  many  political 
offices. 


OUR  LITERARY  AND   CLOSET-DRAMA     67 

berous  hosts  of  mankind  to  redeem  themselves  with  their 
own  right  hands." 

The  only  connection  Forrest  had  with  Willis  was  to  horse 
whip  him  in  Washington  Square,  New  York,  for  some 
scandal  in  the  divorce  suit  then  pending  between  the  actor 
and  his  wife.  Whatever  claims  Willis  had  dramatically 
were  furthered  by  Wallack.  But  there  is  no  doubt  that 
among  the  closet-dramatists,  Willis  may  be  taken  as  a  not 
able  example,  criticised  in  a  contemporary  fashion  by  Poe. 
Most  literary  men  of  the  period  essayed  drama:  Charles 
Brockden  Brown  (1771-1810) l  with  "Alcuin"  (1797); 
John  Neal  (1793-1876)  with  "Otho"  (1819);  George  P. 
Morris  (1802-1864)  with  "The  Maid  of  Saxony"  (1842); 
Thomas  H.  Chivers  (1807-1858)  with  "The  Sons  of  Usna" 
(1858);  W.  W.  Story  (1819-1895)  with  "Nero"  (1875)  and 
with  "Stephania"  (1875).2 

George  Henry  Boker  (1823-1890)  was  the  most  important 
of  the  Philadelphia  group,  a  man  of  leisure,  a  scholar,  and 
one  whose  culture  was  more  exact  and  polished  than  his 
passion  was  sincere.  Hans  Breitman  (C.  G.  Leland)  speaks 
of  Boker's  boyhood,  when  he  manifested  such  remarkable 
poetic  talents  that  Forrest,  in  a  broad  flood  of  enthusiasm, 
characterized  him  as  the  best  reader  in  America.  At  Prince 
ton,  Boker  gratified  every  artistic  taste,  and  gathered  in 
his  room  those  students  whose  interests  were  distinctly 
literary. 

He  then  studied  law,  and  traveled  abroad  until  1847. 
As  early  as  this,  Bayard  Taylor  recognized  in  him  a  close 
and  sympathetic  friend.  In  the  following  years,  Boker 
wrote  assiduously,  and  his  devotion  to  the  Union  cause 
during  the  Civil  War  is  seen  in  the  numberless  "Poems  of 
the  War"  which  came  from  his  pen.  In  1871,  Boker  began 

1  A  two- volume  Life  of  Brown  was  written  by  William  Dunlap. 
*  See  Wegelin  and  Roden. 


68  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

his  diplomatic  service,  being  sent  by  President  Grant  to 
Constantinople.  He  was  transferred  in  1875  to  St.  Peters 
burg,  where  he  gained  much  popularity  during  a  two  years' 
service. 

All  this  time,  his  poetic  talents  were  variously  directed 
toward  the  stage.  He  was  the  author  of  "Calaynos,"  a 
tragedy  given  at  Sadler's  Wells  Theatre,  London,  the  year 
after  its  publication  in  1848.  "  Francesca  da  Rimini "  (1853) l 
is  his  most  famous  piece,  and  is  most  deserving  of  considera 
tion  in  a  theatrical  sense.  Boker's  art  temperament  is  well 
measured  in  the  following  from  the  pen  of  Richard  Henry 
Stoddard: 

"There  was  no  such  word  as  fail  in  his  bright  lexicon, 
wherein  failure  was  hammered  into  success.  I  was  not  sur 
prised  to  learn  therefore  [March,  1853]  .  .  .  that  he  had  a 
new  tragedy  on  the  anvil.  'You  will  laugh  at  this,'  he  wrote, 
'but  the  thing  is  so;  "Francesca  da  Rimini"  is  the  title. 
Of  course  you  know  the  story  —  every  one  does;  but  you, 
nor  any  one  else,  do  not  know  it  as  I  have  treated  it.  I  have 
great  faith  in  the  successful  issue  of  this  new  attempt.  I 
think  all  day,  and  write  all  night.  This  is  one  of  my  pecu 
liarities,  by  the  bye:  a  subject  seizes  me,  soul  and  body, 
which  accounts  for  the  rapidity  of  my  execution.  My  muse 
resembles  a  whirlwind :  she  catches  me  up,  hurries  me  along, 
and  drops  me  all  breathless  at  the  end  of  her  career.'  The 
great  heat  at  which  'Lear'  and  'Julius  Csesar'  were  prob 
ably  written,  at  which  we  know  'The  Prisoner  of  Chillon' 
was  written,  at  which  'A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon'  is  said  to 
have  been  written,  were  inherent  in  the  dramatic  genius  of 

1  He  also  wrote  "AnneBoleyn,"  "Leonorde  Guzman,"  "The  Be 
trothal,"  and  "The  Widow's  Marriage."  He  was  one  of  the  founders 
of  the  Union  League  Club,  in  Philadelphia.  For  biographical  data, 
etc.,  see  Critic,  Jan.  11,  1890;  Critic,  April  12,  1890;  Critic,  April 
14,  1888  (G.  P.  Lathrop);  Lippincott,  June,  1890  (R.  H.  Stoddard); 
Atlantic,  March,  1890  (Contributor's  Club). 


OUR  LITERARY  AND   CLOSET-DRAMA     69 

Boker,  from  whom,  at  the  end  of  nineteen  days,  I  received 
another  letter,  which  I  found  very  interesting:  'Now  that 
"Francesca  da  Rimini"  is  done,  all  but  the  polishing,  I 
have  time  to  look  around  and  see  how  I  have  been  neglect 
ing  my  friends  during  my  state  of  possession.  Of  course 
you  wish  to  know  my  opinion  of  the  bantling:  I  shall  sup 
pose  you  do,  at  all  events.  Well,  then,  I  am  better  satisfied 
with  "Francesca  da  Rimini"  than  with  any  of  my  previous 
plays.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  say  what  you,  or  the  world, 
will  say  of  it;  but  if  it  do  not  please  you  both,  I  do  not  know 
what  I  am  about.  The  play  is  more  dramatic  than  former 
ones,  fiercer  in  its  displays  of  intense  passions,  and,  so  far 
as  mere  poetry  goes,  not  inferior,  if  not  superior,  to  any 
of  them.  In  this  play  I  have  dared  more,  risked  more, 
than  I  ever  had  courage  to  do  before.  Ergo,  if  it  be  not  a 
great  triumph,  it  will  certainly  be  a  great  failure.  I  doubt 
whether  you  in  a  hundred  guesses  could  hit  upon  the  man 
ner  in  which  I  have  treated  the  story.  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
prejudice  you  regarding  the  play;  I  would  rather  have  you 
judge  for  yourself,  even  if  your  decision  be  adverse.  Am 
I  not  the  devil  and  all  for  rapid  composition?  My  speed 
frightens  me,  and  makes  me  fearful  of  the  merits  of  my 
work.  Yet  on  coolly  going  over  my  work,  I  find  little  to 
object  to,  either  as  to  the  main  design  or  its  details;  I  touch 
up,  here  and  there,  but  I  do  little  more.  The  reason  for 
my  rapid  writing  is  that  I  never  attempt  putting  pen  to 
paper  before  my  design  is  perfectly  matured.  I  never  start 
with  one  idea,  trusting  to  the  glow  of  poetical  composition 
for  the  remainder.  That  will  do  in  lyrical  poetry,  but  it  would 
be  death  and  damnation  to  dramatic.  But  just  think  of 
it!  —  Twenty-eight  hundred  lines  in  about  three  weeks! 
To  look  back  upon  such  labor  is  appalling!  Let  me  give 
you  the  whole  history  of  my  manner  of  composition  in  a 
few  words.  If  it  be  not  interesting  to  you,  you  differ  from 


70  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

me,  and  I  mistake  the  kind  of  matters  that  interest  you. 
While  I  am  writing,  I  eat  little,  I  drink  nothing,  I  meditate 
my  work,  literally,  all  day.  By  the  time  night  arrives,  I 
am  in  a  highly  nervous  and  excited  state.  About  nine 
o'clock,  I  begin  writing  and  smoking,  and  I  continue  the 
two  exercises,  pari  passu,  until  about  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  Then  I  reel  to  bed,  half-crazy  with  cigar-smoke 
and  poesy,  sleep  five  hours,  and  begin  the  next  day  as  the 
former.  Ordinarily,  I  sleep  from  seven  to  eight  hours,  but 
when  I  am  writing,  but  five,  —  simply  because  I  cannot 
sleep  any  longer  at  such  times.  The  consequence  of  this 
mode  of  life  is,  that  at  the  end  of  a  long  work  I  sink  at  once 
like  a  spent  horse,  and  have  not  energy  enough  to  perform 
the  ordinary  duties  of  life.  I  feel  my  health  giving  way 
under  it,  but  really  I  do  not  care.  I  am  ambitious  to  be 
numbered  among  the  martyrs.'" 

Loyal  as  Stoddard  was  to  his  friend,  we  find  him  writing 
in  this  critical  vein: 

"The  conception  of  his  tragedies  and  comedies,  their 
development,  their  movement,  and  their  catastrophes, 
are  dramatic.  Poetical,  they  are  not  overweighted  with 
poetry;  emotional  and  passionate,  their  language  is  natu 
rally  figurative,  and  the  blank  verse  rises  and  falls  as  the 
occasion  demands.  One  feels  in  reading  them  that  the 
writer  had  studied  the  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  dramatists, 
and  that  they  harmed  as  well  as  helped  him.  If  he  could 
have  forgotten  them  and  remembered  only  his  own  genius, 
his  work  would  have  been  more  original.  A  born  dramatist, 
he  was  a  genuine  balladist,  as  I  could  prove  by  comparing 
his  ballads  with  those  of  Macaulay;  and  a  born  sonneteer, 
as  I  could  prove  by  comparing  his  sonnets  with  those  of 
Sidney,  Spenser,  Daniel,  and  Shakespeare."  1 

1  "Francesca  da  Rimini"  was  first  produced  at  the  old  Broadway 
Theatre  in  1855,  with  E.  L.  Davenport  and  Mme.  Ponisi;  revived 


OUR  LITERARY   AND   CLOSET-DRAMA    71 

Boker's  "Francesca  da  Rimini"  is  a  peculiarly  contra 
dictory  piece  of  work,  since,  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
stage,  it  is  essentially  and  effectively  dramatic,  while  as 
literature,  it  is  mediocre  and  badly  imitative  of  the  Eliza 
bethan  style.  So  imbued  was  Boker  with  the  method  of  his 
models,  that  he  often  paralleled  Shakespeare,  his  poetic 
imagery  being  imitative,  and  his  phraseology  disappointingly 
colloquial.  Yet  over  and  above  the  mere  story,  Boker  has 
succeeded  in  depicting  distinct  character,  especially  in  his 
dwarf,  Pepe.  The  historical  setting  is  slight,  yet  sufficient 
to  localize  the  piece,  and  the  dramatis  personcs  are  faithful 
in  outline,  though  oftentimes  devoid  of  consuming  passion. 

Should  you  take  the  different  versions  of  the  Francesca 
legend,  based  on  Dante's  episodical  mention  of  it  in  "The 
Divine  Comedy/'  it  would  be  found  that  Phillips,  as  a 
dramatist,  has  the  fault  of  being  diffuse,  while  Boker  is 
prosaic  and  plain.  Were  it  not  for  over-elaboration,  D'An- 
nunzio's  play  might  have  supplanted  all  others  on  the  same 
subject,  because  of  its  Italian  spirit.  Could  we  draw  from 
Phillips  his  simple  lyricism,  from  D'Annunzio  his  intensity, 
from  Boker  his  proportion,  and  from  Marion  Crawford  his 
realization  of  the  true  situation,  toned  away  from  melo 
drama,  then  the  ideal  play  might  be  constructed.  But  Boker 
is  thoroughly  actable,  and  is  not  unworthy  of  revival. 

The  attitude  toward  the  closet-drama  is  purely  one  of 
culture.  A  pseudo-interest  in  the  grandiloquent  style  has 
resulted  in  that  separation  of  literature  from  the  dramatic 
form,  and  as  soon  as  one  realizes  that  literature  is  inherent 
in  the  substance  and  in  the  structure,  so  soon  will  ornamen- 

by  Lawrence  Barrett  and  Marie  Wainwright,  at  McVickar's  Theatre, 
Chicago,  Nov.  6,  1882,  and  by  Otis  Skinner,  William  Norris,  and 
Marcia  Van  Dresser,  at  the  Grand  Opera  House,  Chicago,  August 
22,  1901.  After  the  success  of  the  piece  in  1882,  Boker  wrote  to 
Barrett:  "Why  didn't  I  receive  this  encouragement  twenty  years 
ago?  Then  I  might  have  done  something." 


72  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

tation  cease  to  be  strung  in  useless  festoons  upon  the  neces 
sary  dialogue.  For  in  all  plays  there  is  essential  talk  even 
as  there  are  Sarcey's  scenes  a  faire.  It  is  a  false  idea  of 
culture  that  created  a  false  idea  of  closet-drama.  For  though 
the  theatre  is  based  on  imitation,  it  cannot  abide  a  mis 
use  of  its  essential  structure  in  order  to  be  called  literature. 
More  than  any  other  critic,  Professor  Brander  Matthews  has 
persisted,  in  his  writings,  that  the  drama  must  comply  with 
the  practical  demands  of  the  playhouse  in  order  to  be  drama. 
Pointing  to  the  body  of  dramaturgy  which  has  come  down 
to  us,  he  has  been  firm  in  his  claim  that  "  only  literature  is 
permanent."  And  so,  we  arrive  at  the  same  conclusion  which 
shall  come  to  us  in  a  consideration  of  the  poetic  drama. 
We  will  accept  drama  in  any  form,  just  so  it  be  drama  first 
of  all. 


CHAPTER  V 

BRONSON  HOWARD:  DEAN  OF  THE  AMERICAN 

DRAMA 

As  Dean  of  the  American  Drama,  Bronson  Howard  occupies 
a  most  significant  position.  The  theatre  is  a  very  sensitive 
barometer,  registering  current  ideas  and  local  manners,  and 
if  one  should  range  Mrs.  Mowatt's  "Fashion"  (1847),  Mrs. 
Bateman's  "Self"  (1856),  and  Mr.  Howard's  "Saratoga" 
(1870)  side  by  side,  the  timely  differences  would  be  very 
strikingly  felt.  The  point  of  view  held  by  Mr.  Howard 
just  before  his  death  had  a  broad  sweep  toward  the  future 
and  a  very  vital  sweep  along  the  past.  For,  in  respect  to 
the  latter  position,  he  was  able  to  estimate  the  value  of  that 
dramatic  soil  and  of  those  dramatic  traditions  from  which 
he  sprung;  he  was  so  situated  that  he  could  step  aside  from 
the  main  current,  and  note  wherein  the  later  drama  had 
profited  by  its  inheritance. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  in  the  years  to  come,  the  estimate 
of  Mr.  Howard,  based  upon  his  numerous  popular  successes, 
will  not  be  a  very  high  one,  even  though  "The  Banker's 
Daughter"  and  "Aristocracy"  are  marked  with  a  certain 
literary  quality.  This  stricture  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that 
he  wrote  at  a  time  when  our  American  stage  was  flooded 
with  French  imitations  or  importations;  when,  as  Mr. 
Howard  himself  declared,  adaptations  for  the  English  speak 
ing  stage  not  only  meant  a  change  to  English  life  and  English 
characters,  but  meant  also  that  in  the  transference,  these 


74  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

characters  continued  "to  express  foreign  ideas  and  to  act 
like  foreigners." 

But  Mr.  Howard's  right  to  the  title  of  Dean  of  the  Ameri 
can  Drama  can  never  be  disputed,  for,  whatever  is  done  in 
the  future  to  enrich  our  native  dramaturgic  literature,  it 
will  have  been  through  the  efforts  of  Mr.  Howard  that  the 
first  impetus  toward  that  efflorescence  was  given.  In  the 
early  seventies  he  stood  single-handed,  with  the  Anglicism 
and  classicism  of  Daly,  Palmer,  and  Wallack  as  his  chiefest 
opposition,  and  he  forced  the  public  gaze  upon  current  thought 
and  manners.  So  as  to  accomplish  this  object,  he  was  obliged 
to  have  recourse  to  conventions  more  French  than  they  were 
American.  What  is  of  most  importance  is  that  Mr.  Howard 
by  his  plays  established  the  fact  of  the  American  drama's 
existence  —  plays  in  a  way  far  more  native  than  those 
romantic  pieces  by  George  Boker  and  the  Philadelphia 
group.  It  is  an  unfortunate  possibility,  however,  that  unless 
our  dramatic  literature  emphasizes  the  essential  elements 
from  which  our  national  drama  has  come,  Mr.  Howard  in 
the  future  will  be  little  more  than  a  name  to  theatre-goers, 
outside  of  the  profession.  For  his  plays  are  hardly  literary  in 
the  sense  that  they  possess  reading  style  or  grace.  That  is 
to  be  deplored,  inasmuch  as  Mr.  Howard,  intellectually, 
was  of  a  high  type  of  mind,  while  as  Dean  he  always  sup 
ported  that  which  aimed  to  be  the  best. 

It  were  futile  indeed  to  regard  Mr.  Howard  as  a  producing 
playwright  from  any  other  angle  of  vision  than  that  of  his 
day.  His  technique,  his  observation,  his  locale,  are  of  a  gener 
ation  that  is  gone;  and  though  the  humanity  of  his  charac 
ters  still  retain  acting  possibilities,  the  American  drama  of 
to-day  is  subject  to  far  different  influences.  We  are  now 
passing  through  the  fires  of  scientific  query  and  realistic 
handling  of  the  sex  question.  Dion  Boucicault,  as  recent 
as  1890,  only  vaguely  felt  that  there  was  something  in  Ibsen 


BRONSON  HOWARD  75 

which  demanded  what  he  called  serious  regard.  Long  before 
this  storm  and  stress  period  in  stage  history,  Mr.  Howard's 
method  was  so  far  crystallized  as  to  remain  unaffected  by 
later  technique.  And  toward  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  it 
was  curious  to  behold  in  him  a  man  intellectually  so  far  in 
advance  of  his  method  of  writing.  For,  despite  Ibsen  and 
Zola  and  Tolstoi;  despite  Howells  and  James  and  Meredith; 
despite  Pinero  and  Jones  and  Shaw,  Mr.  Howard's  last 
comedy,  "  Kate,"  is  untouched  by  current  influences,  however 
much  it  strove  to  be  modern.  In  this  play  his  ideas  of 
life  deepened,  his  technical  grasp  became  firmer,  his  insight 
keener,  but  his  discussions  were  all  clad  in  form  typical  of 
"The  Banker's  Daughter,"  "One  of  Our  Girls,"  and  "The 
Henrietta." 

Before  1870,  the  American  Drama  was  very  broadly  and 
very  crudely  manipulated  in  two  directions:  American 
history  and  the  American  type  were  chiefly  to  be  reckoned 
with.  We  find  long  lists  of  Indian  plays,  of  Revolutionary 
dramas,  of  spectaculars  unfolding  the  marvels  of  coloni 
zation  and  the  successes  of  1812.  These  early  pieces  are 
all  forgotten,  save  one  perhaps  —  the  "Metamora"  of 
Judge  Stone,  so  closely  identified  with  the  personality  of 
Edwin  Forrest.  The  Indian  plays,  as  a  genre,  before  1846, 
were  not,  however,  any  more  common  than  the  American 
types  which  dominated  the  boards  in  such  mushroom  thick 
ness  that  the  elder  Hackett  followed  one  play  of  the  kind 
with  another;  and  his  rival  actor,  Hill,  became  popularly 
known  as  "Yankee  "Hill. 

It  is  customary  for  the  dramatic  historian  of  to-day  to 
discount  the  influence  of  the  character  type  on  the  American 
stage  —  a  type  which  disappeared  usually  with  the  pass 
ing  of  the  actor  who  created  it.  But  the  value  of  W.  J. 
Florence's  Bardwell  Slote,  of  John  T.  Raymond's  Mulberry 
Sellers,  of  Murdoch's  and  Mayo's  Davy  Crockett,  of  Chan- 


76  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

frau's  Mose,  and  of  Jefferson's  Asa  Trenchard,  lay  in  the  fact 
that  they  helped  to  create  in  the  minds  of  theatre-goers  a 
belief  in  national  distinctions;  they  helped  to  preserve 
American  characteristics  on  the  stage,  however  cartoon  the 
pictures  might  have  been.  All  drama  must  thus  work  itself 
out  from  extravagance  to  refinement. 

When  Mr.  Howard  began  to  write  for  the  theatre,  the 
influence  of  Scribe,  and  his  manner  of  unfolding  plot  and 
counterplot,  had  not  yet  been  succeeded  by  a  more  natural 
method  of  development.  Dumas,  fils,  with  "  Camille,"  had 
injected  into  the  romantic  play  of  intrigue  and  infidelity,  a 
species  of  emotional  analysis  which  was  somehow  mistaken 
for  an  ethical  purpose.  Furthermore,  Robertson  and  Taylor, 
borrowing  freely  from  the  elder  Dumas  and  Hugo  on  one 
hand,  and  from  the  comedy  of  incident  and  manner  on  the 
other,  simply  Anglicized  the  French  form  of  drama  for  the 
English  stage.  Mr.  Howard  found  such  to  be  the  conditions 
when  he  began  his  struggles. 

He  found  that  English  managers  realized  it  was  less  ex 
pensive,  and  involved  less  risk,  to  employ  Boucicault,1  for 
example,  to  translate  French  plays,  to  adapt  them,  as  they 
phrased  it,  than  to  experiment  with  a  new  play  that  had 
never  been  tried  upon  the  public  He  found  that  in  America 
the  situation  was  very  much  the  same.  Popular  opinion 
was  led  to  value  an  importation,  and  to  discount  any  serious 
treatment  of  American  character  or  of  American  life.  He 
found,  finally,  that  there  was  only  half-hearted  interest  in 
the  American  drama  on  the  part  of  two  of  the  leading  managers 
of  that  era,  however  much  they  might  write  encouragingly 
of  the  subject  in  current  reviews  or  in  their  reminiscences. 
Lester  Wallack  in  no  way  encouraged  native  talent,  even 
though  his  excellence  as  a  stage  manager  helped  to  give  the 

1  See  my  "Famous  Actor-Families  in  America"  for  a  chapter  on 
"The  Boucicaults." 


BRONSON  HOWARD  77 

theatre  an  abundant  amount  of  English  comedy  and  tragedy; 
even  though  he  was  author  of  a  local  play  called  "Central 
Park."  1  The  same  may  well  be  claimed  of  Augustin  Daly, 
who  nevertheless  aimed  to  be  American  in  "Under  the  Gas 
light."  But  his  was  likewise  a  foreign  ambition,  for  he 
mounted  adaptations  of  French  and  German  farces  whenever 
he  wished  to  depart  from  the  Shakespearean  or  classical 
comedy  repertoire  of  his  New  York  theatres;  he  catered  dis 
tinctively  to  culture,  and  how  well  he  succeeded  is  measured 
by  the  atmosphere  which  for  so  long  a  while  after  his  death 
clung  to  his  Broadway  playhouse  at  Thirtieth  Street. 

Of  the  three  prominent  managers,  A.  M.  Palmer  may  be 
said  to  have  done  the  most  to  have  encouraged  native  dra 
matic  ability.  He  and  Mr.  Daly  were  both  involved  in  the 
development  of  Bronson  Howard. 

Such  is  the  setting  to  aid  us  in  claiming  for  this  writer  the 
full  appropriateness  of  the  title:  Dean  of  the  American 
Drama.  Mr.  Howard  was  born  at  Detroit  in  1842,  during 
a  time  when  that  city  was  considered  the  extreme  West. 
To  undertake  a  journey  there  from  the  East  was  a  notable 
accomplishment,  and  in  one  of  James  Fenimore  Cooper's 
numerous  autobiographical  references,  we  find  him  boast 
ing  of  the  feat.  In  the  "  Leathers tocking"  series,  moreover, 
one  of  the  characters  was  based  on  Mr.  Howard's  father  — 
a  man  of  adventurous  nature,  of  firm  disposition  and  deter 
mination  —  a  man,  in  fine,  of  the  pioneer  type.  The  intense 
American  strain  in  this  family  reaches  back  as  far  as  1759, 
when  one  of  the  Howards  came  over  from  England  with 
Wolfe's  army,  and,  strange  to  say,  almost  immediately  began 
to  realize  that  the  colonies  were  right  in  their  attitude  toward 
the  mother-country.  This  sympathy  increased  to  such  an 
extent  that  Howard  enlisted  with  the  "rebel"  forces  during 

1  See  my  "Famous  Actor-Families  in  America"  for  a  chapter  on 
"TheWallacks." 


78  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

• 

the  Revolution  —  an  act  that  resulted  in  his  death  on  the 
field  at  Monmouth,  New  Jersey. 

Mr.  Howard's  grandfather  was  quick  to  catch  the  West 
ward  spirit,  though  loath  to  break  from  the  East.  He  was  a 
roving  farmer  who  moved  from  Howard's  Settlement  on 
Lake  Ontario,  thence  to  a  point  in  New  York  State,  near 
the  St.  Lawrence  River,  and  he  instilled  into  his  own  son  that 
same  instinct  to  migrate  which  had  prompted  the  Revolu 
tionary  sire  to  roam  from  place  to  place. 

Mr.  Howard's  father  was  a  commission  merchant  in  De 
troit  at  the  time  of  his  son's  birth.  He  had  been  a  captain 
of  a  schooner  in  the  days  when  sea-faring  encouraged  muti 
nous  crews — composed  mostly  of  a  cursing,  grog-beset,  brutal 
type  of  sailor.  But  Howard,  Sr.,  was  of  a  different  calibre 
from  most  sea  commanders.  He  banished  the  freedom  of 
oaths  from  the  deck;  he  cleared  the  lockers  and  holds  of  all 
grog;  he  insisted  upon  discipline  which  his  friends  told  him 
could  never  be  maintained  where  grog  was  denied.  His 
actions  as  commander  hastened  the  establishment  of  liquor 
regulations  in  the  maritime  service,  and  abolished  from 
its  prominent  position  on  deck  the  water-cooler  which  had 
up  to  this  time  been  filled  with  grog  for  anyone  who  cared 
to  turn  the  faucet.  His  immediate  reward  was  that  he  ob 
tained  differential  rates  of  insurance  which  other  seamen 
coveted,  but  were  denied.  Bronson  Howard  was  proud  of 
this  bit  of  family  history. 

Without  giving  up  entire  interest  in  the  ship  business, 
Howard,  Sr.,  joined  the  firm  of  Alvin  Bronson  and  Company, 
Bronson,  after  whom  the  young  man  was  named,  being  at  one 
time  State  Senator  at  Albany  from  Oswego  County.  In 
some  of  the  early  playbills  we  find  the  full  name  of  the  dram 
atist  recorded  as  Bronson  Crocker  Howard,  Mr.  Crocker 
being  another  partner  of  the  firm.  Many  of  his  journalistic 
friends  used  to  address  him  as  B.  C.  Howard,  though  he 


BRONSON  HOWARD  79 

preferred  the  shorter  form  as  more  distinctive  and  individual 
istic. 

From  1842  to  1858,  therefore,  young  Howard  remained 
in  Detroit,  long  enough  to  secure  the  rudiments  of  an  edu 
cation,  to  see  his  father  Mayor  of  the  city  (1849),  and  to 
develop  what  his  father  bequeathed  him  —  an  inventive 
taste  which  expanded  later  and  aided  him,  when  ingenuity 
was  required  of  him  behind  the  scenes  at  the  theatre. 

Howard,  Sr.,  was  accustomed  to  whittle  rough  vessels 
from  blocks  of  wood;  this  we  may  consider  as  symbol  of  the 
mechanical  side  of  dramatic  construction.  In  fact,  before 
the  Prismatic  Club  of  Detroit,  Mr.  Howard  once  claimed 
that  the  mechanical  engineer  and  the  dramatist  required 
essentially  the  same  technical  training.  He  afterwards, 
before  the  students  of  Harvard  University,  reasserted  this,  in 
connection  with  his  play,  "The  Banker's  Daughter." 

Young  Howard  was  now  sent  East  to  prepare  for  Yale,  — 
the  class  of  1865;  but  though  General  Russell's  preparatory 
school  did  its  work  successfully,  nature  went  against  the 
scheme,  and  Howard's  eyes  failed  him  in  1860.  Later,  he  was 
granted  the  privilege  of  attending  a  few  lectures  with  his 
class,  but  he  was  never  able  to  matriculate. 

During  this  time,  the  written  drama  as  a  profession  was 
farthest  from  his  thoughts.  He  had  manufactured  a  few 
skits  for  his  school,  and  had  become  unswerving  in  his  deter 
mination  not  to  enter  a  trade.  In  fact,  stimulated  by  the 
books  and  by  the  lecturing  of  Bayard  Taylor,  Howard  was 
bent  on  becoming  a  writer.  *  With  this  phase  we  must  now 
deal,  for  it  will  indicate  how  subtly  and  how  surely  natural 
inclination  asserts  itself.  Unknowingly,  we  are  led  whither 
our  tastes  prompt  us,  and  Howard's  first  literary  effort,  based 
upon  a  purely  literary  enthusiasm  for  the  then  recently 
published  American  translation  of  "  Les  Miserables,"  proved 
to  be  a  play. 


80  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

With  all  the  confidence  of  youth,  he  persuaded  a  manager 
to  let  him  attempt  a  drama  called  "Fantine,"  based  on 
some  of  the  Hugo  incidents.  It  was  played  by  a  local 
stock  company,  managed  according  to  the  custom  of  the 
day.  The  "star"  was  the  only  one  to  travel,  going  from 
one  city  to  another,  in  each  of  which  a  stock  company  was 
ready  to  support  him.  When  written,  this  crude  first  at 
tempt  was  found  to  be  unfit  for  the  practical  side  of  the 
theatre;  with  all  the  inexperience  of  the  inexperienced 
amateur,  Howard  had  expanded  the  first  act  until  it  was 
sufficiently  long  to  be  a  play  in  itself.  But,  undaunted,  he 
set  about  pruning  and  cutting.  Wrhat  man  can  ever  expect 
to  become  a  playwright  without  that  energetic  willingness  to 
slave,  labor,  and  hope?  Mr.  Howard  always  possessed  to  a 
large  degree  the  unfailing  optimism  of  the  true  craftsman, 
and  he  once  said,  after  he  had  gone  through  thirty-eight 
years  of  theatre  service :  "  I  never  can  understand  the  doubts 
as  to  whether  one  can  do  a  play,  if  he  really  has  it  in  him;  he 
just  goes  and  does  it  without  questioning."  This  determin 
ation  which  Mr.  Howard  always  preached  was  an  inspiration 
to  his  younger  associates,  and  to  many  of  them  he  used  to 
say,  "When  you  find  yourself  standing  in  the  way  of  dra 
matic  truth,  clear  the  track!" 

An  interesting  state  of  affairs  existed  in  those  days,  ex 
cellently  illustrated  by  the  fate  of  "Fantine."  This  play 
was  never  published;  in  fact,  for  a  long  while  Mr.  Howard 
considered  the  manuscript  as  lost.  The  only  trace  of  it  to 
be  had  was  a  "skeleton"  copy  which  it  was  customary  to 
give  to  the  prompter:  that  is,  the  play  with  all  the  leading 
parts  omitted,  and  only  the  cues  as  a  guide.  This  "skeleton" 
precaution  was  necessary  because  of  the  copyright  weak 
ness  which  allowed  all  kinds  of  piracy  to  be  committed  in 
the  profession.  There  were  slight  means  of  protecting  the 
author's  property  in  those  days,  a  fact  which  added  to  Mr. 


BRONSON  HOWARD  81 

Howard's  interest  in  the  dramatic  copyright  debates.  Under 
such  conditions,  it  would  never  do  to  allow  the  prompter 
to  have  in  his  possession  the  entire  manuscript.  The  "  skele 
ton"  was  of  small  value  to  Mr.  Howard;  but  fortunately, 
the  "leads"  being  extant,  they  turned  up  unexpectedly  some 
years  after,  and  were  dropped  into  the  setting  like  missing 
stones  in  a  mosaic. 

The  eventful  year  of  1864,  therefore,  found  Bronson 
Howard  making  a  start  as  playwright.  Another  interest 
was  drawing  him  to  the  stage,  for  he  was  serving  a  Detroit 
paper  as  dramatic  critic  and  besides,  was  reading  plays  for 
his  own  amusement,  familiarizing  himself  with  the  historical 
development  of  playwriting,  which  is  a  necessary  acquisition 
for  dignified  theatre  work. 

These  were  war  times,  but  young  Howard  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  drawn  into  the  vortex,  until  it  was  rumored 
that  an  invasion  of  the  Union  was  to  be  attempted  by  the 
English  from  Canada.  For  several  nights,  in  consequence, 
Howard  tramped  the  shores  of  the  Lake,  waiting  in  the  dark 
ness  for  momentary  attack,  and  experiencing  all  the  excite 
ment  that  comes  before  a  battle.  There  was  no  invasion, 
so  he  left  Detroit  in  1865,  and  landed  in  the  Tribune  office, 
New  York,  where  he  was  detailed  as  reporter  to  write  up 
the  novel  opening  of  the  season  at  Coney  Island.  From 
1867,  intermittently  until  1872,  Howard  attended  isolated 
lectures,  but  most  of  his  energies  were  expended  on  journal 
ism,  in  a  day  when  newspapers  were  being  quickly  founded, 
and  were  as  rapidly  changing  hands. 

In  the  usual  journalistic  career,  which,  as  we  have  said, 
is  so  characteristic  of  many  of  our  native  playwrights,  Mr. 
Howard's  history  is  exceptional.  For  he  was  trained  in  a 
newspaper  school  that  produced  Whitelaw  Reid,  and  from 
1868  to  1872  he  was  filling  varied  positions  on  many  editorial 
staffs.  He  received  his  first  honorarium  as  dramatic  critic, 


82  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

under  Charles  H.  Sweetzer,  who  founded  The  Round  Table, 
a  precursor  of  The  Nation,  and  was  next  sent  to  report  the 
Yale  commencement  and  the  Yale-Harvard  boat  race,  for 
the  Evening  Gazette.  It  was  while  on  the  latter  paper  that 
one  of  his  associate  reporters  was  assigned  a  notable  task  — 
to  follow  up  and  describe  how  the  first  bag  of  mail  was  brought 
to  New  York  from  Philadelphia,  an  incident  which  was  the 
beginning  of  the  post-office  system  on  its  present  gigantic 
scale. 

Howard  then  followed  Sweetzer  to  his  new  paper,  The 
Mail,  assuming  the  nominal  office  of  first  president  of  the 
Mail  Association.  But  the  paper  was  sold  in  1870,  and  John 
Russell  Young  then  employed  Howard  on  the  Tribune, 
making  him  exchange  editor.  Toward  the  latter  part  of 
1871,  he  went  over  to  the  Post,  continuing  his  journalistic 
career,  despite  his  intervening  dramatic  ventures,  through 
1876,  during  which  year  he  wrote  Centennial  articles  for  the 
London  Pall  Mall  Magazine,  and  for  the  Detroit  Free  Press. 
Before  this,  however,  his  determination  had  been  firmly 
settled  to  devote  all  of  his  energies  to  the  drama.  It  was 
probably  about  this  time  that  his  intimacy  with  Mr.  (now 
Sir)  Charles  Wyndham  began.  The  latter's  first  managerial 
venture  occurred  in  "Hurricanes,"  which,  written  by  Mr. 
Howard,  was  renamed  "Truth"  in  James  Albery's  adaptation 
for  England.  In  1880,  Miss^Wyndham  became  Mrs.  Bronson 
Howard. 

Despite  the  lethargic  state  in  which  Mr.  Howard  found 
the  American  dramatist,  and  despite  the  absolute  inertia  of 
the  American  drama  itself,  he  entered  the  contest  with  great 
energy.  So  thoroughly  were  foreign  models  dominant  on  the- 
boards  that  he  later  confessed  how  one  of  his  earliest  manu 
scripts  contained  speeches  in  which  Newport  people  went 
about  exclaiming  "Egad! "  in  real  eighteenth  century  style. 
Mr.  Howard  was  always  fully  aware  of  the  historical  changes 


Photo,  by  Maneau 


KACHEL  CKOTIIKKS 


BRONSON  HOWARD  83 

in  drama,  the  shifting  of  social  attitudes,  of  moral  conven 
tionalities.  Every  dramatist,  unless  he  be  distinctly  a  re 
former,  is  loath  to  overstep  such  conventionalities.  Mrs. 
Inchbald,  in  one  of  her  dramatic  prefaces,  refers  to  play 
wrights  of  her  day  as  being  far  behind  the  period  in  method 
and  in  subject  matter;  yet  at  the  same  time  she  was  astounded 
to  find  Mrs.  Centilever  utilizing  the  clergy  in  one  of  her  plays ! 
It  took  years  for  the  stage  minister  to  make  his  appearance 
in  society  drama. 

Mr.  Howard  once  said  that  in  Rachel  Crothers'  "  The  Three 
of  Us/*  such  a  heroine  as  is  there  portrayed  —  one  who  enters 
a  man's  room  at  midnight,  to  outface  his  threats  and  to 
outwit  his  claim  that  he  will  compromise  her  —  was  thirty 
or  forty  years  in  coming.  Augustus  Thomas  has  announced 
that  he  held  "The  Witching  Hour"  in  his  desk  for  several 
seasons,  waiting  the  psychological  moment  when  public 
sentiment  would  be  alive  to  the  truth  of  hypnotism.  Ibsen 
trained  us  all  to  an  acceptance  of  heredity  as  a  stage  subject, 
and  he  confessed  in  his  correspondence  that  he  was  willing 
and  anxious  to  shock  average  conservatism,  without  waiting 
for  the  opportune  time  to  do  things.  He  was  always  in  ad 
vance  of  his  public;  hence  his  isolation  and  loneliness;  hence 
the  storms  of  protest  raised  against  him.  This  only  indi 
cates  the  sensitiveness  to  dramatic  change. 

Mr.  Howard  accepted  theatrical  convention  as  it  existed 
in  1870;  his  one  and  only  fight  was  for  the  recognition  of  the 
American  dramatist.  Just  before  Robertson  held  sway  in 
the  early  sixties  on  the  English  stage,  the  old  style  drama  was 
in  the  ascendancy;  nineteenth  century  people  were  viewing 
and  were  accepting  manners  of  another  era.  But  Robert 
son  gave  a  twist  to  such  a  state  of  affairs;  the  theatre  pendu 
lum  swung  back  to  its  normal  balance,  and  though  he  did 
not  entirely  free  himself  of  the  foreign  yoke  and  of  the 
earlier  romantic  influence,  Robertson  at  least  focussed  the 


84  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

glass  upon  contemporary  condition.  This  accounts  for 
such  a  play  as  "Caste";  it  explains  many  touches  in  the 
dramas  by  Bronson  Howard. 

From  "Saratoga"  (1870)  to  "Kate"  (1906),  Mr.  Howard 
dealt  with  American  character,  largely  in  the  midst  of  foreign 
atmosphere.  The  advance  from  the  same  "Saratoga"  to 
his  "Aristocracy"  (1892),  was  only  an  advance  in  neatness 
and  closeness  of  dialogue.  That  feminine  brightness  which 
drew  down  upon  him  the  wrath  of  contemporary  critics, 
was  admirably  adapted,  as  it  was  in  the  case  of  Clyde  Fitch, 
to  the  French  treatment.  But  the  Anglo-French  back 
ground  detracts  from  the  sincerity  of  American  drama.  Yet, 
should  one  look  closer,  and  not  judge  by  externals  entirely, 
it  will  be  seen,  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Howard,  that  in  spite  of  the 
prejudice  against  American  dramatists  and  American  themes, 
in  spite  of  the  exoteric  character  of  his  technique,  of  his  con 
struction,  he  anticipated  many  of  our  present-day  dramatic 
workers  in  the  selection  of  his  themes. 

"The  Young  Mrs.  Winthrop"  (1882),  however  stereotyped 
in  its  adherence  to  the  "  aside,"  is  a  domestic  play  of  strong 
import,  by  the  side  of  which  Alfred  Sutro's  "The  Walls  of 
Jericho"  is  no  more  powerful  arraignment  of  society  forces 
drawing  husband  and  wife  apart.  "Moorcroft,"  though  it 
failed,  exhibited  Mr.  Howard  as  aware  of  the  value  of  time 
liness  in  theatre  work.  He  had  witnessed  the  instantaneous 
effect  of  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  and  had  noticed  the  melo 
dramatic  success  of  Boucicault's  "The  Octoroon."  It  is 
natural,  therefore,  that  this  "Moorcroft,"  based  on  a  story 
by  John  Hay,  should  have  dealt  with  the  slave  trade  in 
similar  melodramatic  manner. 

"Baron  Rudolph"  (1881)  foreshadowed  by  many  years 
the  stage  treatment  of  the  struggle  between  capital  and  labor, 
so  crudely  handled  by  Charles  Klein  in  "The  Daughters  of 
Men."  Then  there  was  "The  Henrietta"  (1887),  to  my 


BRONSON  HOWARD  85 

mind  one  of  Mr.  Howard's  most  characteristically  American 
plays,  —  barring  a  few  out-of-date  touches,  —  which  might 
very  well  be  classed  with  "  The  Lion  and  the  Mouse,"  Frank 
Norris's  "The  Pit"  (dramatized  by  Channing  Pollock),  and 
"Business  is  Business"  ("Les  Affaires  sont  les  Affaires")  in 
which  Crane  acted.  In  claiming  this  distinction  of  previous- 
ness  for  Mr.  Howard,  it  must  always  be  borne  in  mind  that  his 
was  pioneer  treatment,  which  won  its  way  in  the  face  of  man 
agerial  prejudice  and  productive  barrenness.  "  Shenandoah  " 
later  became  the  forerunner  of  such  a  superior  drama  as 
William  Gillette's  "Secret  Service." 

Mr.  Howard's  progress  toward  the  recognized  position  of 
dean  of  his  profession  was  by  no  means  a  rapid  or  an  easy 
one.  I  have  before  me  accusations  of  diverse  kinds  regis 
tered  against  the  dramatist,  for  there  were  many  critics 
who  could  not  see  originality  in  any  of  his  work.  In  1874, 
when  "Saratoga"  (Anglicized  "Brighton"  by  Frank  Mar 
shall)  was  presented  in  London,  the  Times  loudly  pro 
claimed  that  the  play  was  simply  a  recast  of  Scribe's  "Les 
Eaux."  Mr.  Howard  protested  vigorously  in  the  newspaper 
columns,  yet  he  was  dignifiedly  silent  when  critics  pointed 
to  his  "  Diamonds "  (1872),  and  discovered  in  it  distinct  re 
flections  of  "Still  Waters  Run  Deep";  or  claimed  that  the 
charming  sentiment  in  "Old  Love  Letters"  was  akin  in 
form  and  feeling  to  Gilbert's  "  Sweethearts." 

Despite  the  fact,  for  example,  that  a  certain  special  re 
viewer  was  proverbially  harsh  in  his  judgments  of  Mr. 
Howard,  hinting  that  "One  of  Our  Girls"  (1885)  leaned  upon 
"A  Scrap  of  Paper"  in  its  third  act,  and  upon  "The  School 
for  Scandal"  in  its  fourth  act,  should  one  follow  those  re 
views,  there  would  be  detected  that  with  the  appearance  of 
each  new  play  by  Mr.  Howard,  increasing  credit  and  respect 
were  bestowed  upon  him.  This  was  largely  due  to  the  matur 
ity  of  the  dramatist's  touch  —  to  the  surety  of  his  technique. 


86  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

To  his  feminine  interest,  Mr.  Howard  added  a  repartee 
which  came  from  close  observation  of  small  detail.  At 
first,  in  such  pieces  as  "  Saratoga/'  and  later,  in  "  One  of  Our 
Girls,"  the  style  bordered  on  the  frivolous.  It  seemed 
that  there  was  but  one  way  for  him  to  picture  the  American 
girl:  by  making  her,  amidst  the  conservatism  of  English 
convention,  a  bold,  frank,  "natural"  type,  surprising  every 
one  with  her  freedom,  her  boisterousness.  There  was  little 
of  the  intensive  life  to  be  detected  in  her  struggles,  in  her 
marital  misunderstandings,  unless  we  except  "The  Young 
Mrs.  Winthrop." 

The  formula  of  imported  drama  was  used  by  Mr.  Howard; 
in  order  to  win  his  battle,  he  was  obliged  to  compromise 
somewhere.  The  formula  prescribed  duels  and  French  in 
discretions;  it  necessitated  the  American  characters  being 
lavish  with  money.  A  certain  grace  was  bestowed  upon  the 
feminine  type,  but  otherwise  the  manner  of  depiction  was 
the  same  as  that  used  by  Taylor  in  his  character  portrayal 
of  Asa  Trenchard. 

The  social  amenities,  the  comedies  and  tragedies  of  smart 
set  life,  are  to-day  very  much  as  they  were  yesterday.  We 
find  as  many  of  the  nouveau  riche,  anxious  to  pepper  conversa 
tion  with  French  phrases,  as  many  of  the  so-called  aristocracy 
boasting  of  association  with  titled  folk;  and  there  are  still 
to  be  seen  the  destitute  foreign  noblemen  —  mere  fortune- 
hunters  such  as  Mr.  Howard  introduced  into  "Aristocracy" 
and  "Kate."  Snobbery  has  lost  none  of  its  rampant  coarse 
ness.  Yet  we  have  outgrown  this  cartoon,  this  farce  element, 
in  depicting  American  condition  on  the  stage;  we  seek  for 
less  of  the  incongruous. 

Wall  Street  is  just  as  potent  a  factor  in  the  shattering  of 
homes  as  it  was  when  "The  Henrietta"  was  first  produced; 
but  the  framework  of  social  drama,  of  the  problem  play,  is 
now  more  solid,  and  less  prone  to  be  shaped  by  the  caprice 


BRONSON  HOWARD  87 

of  external  incident.  Mr.  Howard,  despite  the  transitory 
chat  of  his  dialogue,  impresses  one  with  the  feeling  that  be 
neath  the  surface  incident  there  lay  a  very  distinct  idea  —  a 
much  more  substantial  view  of  life  than  his  execution  would 
lead  us  to  believe.  His  criticism  of  American  condition  was 
always  thorough  and  just,  and  his  culture  sense  was  so  keen 
that  it  is  surprising  to  find  how  little  his  plays  reflect  the 
solid  character  of  his  intellect.  His  dramas  were  mostly 
received  with  enthusiasm,  netting  him  a  comfortable  for 
tune.  Yet,  regarding  their  permanence  there  is  doubt,  for 
the  very  reason  that  they  are  cast  in  a  mould  so  easily  dis 
carded,  a  mould  which  held  only  the  froth  of  manners. 

As  a  worker,  Mr.  Howard  was  always  zealous  and  pains 
taking.  His  manuscripts  indicate  that  labor  and  sacrifice 
are  the  dramatist's  watchwords.  Let  a  doubt  as  to  effect 
iveness  once  possess  him,  and  he  went  to  any  amount  of 
trouble  to  overcome  the  scenic  difficulty.  The  well-thumbed 
volumes  on  the  Civil  War  in  his  library  were  evidence  of  his 
care  in  detail  while  planning  "  Shenandoah,"  the  first  draft 
of  which  was  a  network  of  emendations. 

He  wrote  and  re-wrote  a  scene  in  "One  of  Our  Girls"  six 
times  before  he  could  prove  to  his  own  satisfaction  that  the 
original  way  was  the  only  way  for  his  particular  purpose. 
The  lecture  he  delivered  at  Harvard  University,  in  1886, 
applied  the  general  laws  of  drama  to  certain  alterations  made 
in  "The  Banker's  Daughter."  His  object  was  to  show  the 
student  that  whatever  changes  of  primary  importance  were 
made  by  him,  affected  other  details  in  preceding  and  succeed 
ing  situations.  A  drama  is  an  organism,  with  relative  spatial 
values  fluctuating  according  to  dynamic  principles.  Me 
chanical  effectiveness  has  its  constructive  equation,  and  char 
acter  must  develop  consistently  along  lines  of  evolution  and 
of  life. 

But  Mr.  Howard,  while  illustrating  these  laws  by  means 


88  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

of  the  changes  in  his  piece,  also  too  clearly  revealed  in  that 
lecture  a  distinct  danger  underlying  the  stagecraft  of  his 
day  —  a  danger  bequeathed  us  by  the  French,  and  engrafted 
by  Robertson  and  Taylor  upon  English  drama  and  American 
drama  as  well — a  danger  counteracted  by  the  Ibsen  technique, 
with  its  vital  ideas.  The  caprice  of  incident  was  more  thought 
of  than  the  humanity  of  individuals ;  artifice  therefore  largely 
took  the  place  of  art.  "One  of  the  most  important  laws  of 
dramatic  construction,"  said  Mr.  Howard  before  the  Harvard 
audience,  "  might  thus  be  formulated :  If  you  want  a  particu 
lar  thing  done,  choose  a  character  to  do  it  that  an  audience 
will  naturally  expect  to  do  it.  In  'The  Banker's  Daughter' 
I  wanted  a  man  to  fall  in  love  with  my  heroine  after  she  was 
a  married  woman,  and,  of  course,  I  chose  a  French  Count 
for  the  purpose. " 

We  now  ask  again,  in  view  of  all  this  activity,  by  what 
right  is  Mr.  Howard  called  Dean  of  the  American  Dramatists? 
He  always  had  the  interest  of  native  playwrights  at  heart; 
he  fought  for  them  unceasingly,  even  as  ardently  as  Mark 
Twain  did  for  the  author  in  the  copyright  agitations,  making 
appeal  for  proper  protection  of  plays  as  early  as  1879;  he 
founded  for  his  craft  a  permanent  organization,  known  as 
the  Dramatist  Club.  But  more  than  that,  he  established 
the  fact  of  the  American  drama's  existence,  and  stood  ready 
to  render  encouragement  to  the  younger  generation.  Unlike 
"  The  Master  Builder,"  he  hastened  the  newer  school,  always 
gracious  and  always  helpful. 

We  emphasize  in  our  literary  histories  the  importance  of 
such  writers  as  Bret  Harte,  who  preserved  a  native  flavor  in 
the  short  story,  dependent  upon  native  life.  The  American 
idea  in  literature  has  largely  been  subservient  to  local  interest 
and  local  need.  Politically,  socially,  spiritually,  and  eco 
nomically,  locality  has  governed  our  literary  expression,  and 
has  been  externalized  on  the  stage.  Save  in  isolated  instan- 


BRONSON  HOWARD  89 

ces,  idea  in  American  literature  has  in  no  way  equalled 
vividness  of  local  condition.  While  Mr.  Howard's  local  claim 
was  harmed  by  his  manner  of  construction,  he  nevertheless, 
like  Robertson  and  Taylor,  swung  the  pendulum  across  the 
dial  of  contemporary  life,  and  reflected  the  conventional 
phases  of  contemporary  society.  He  recognized  that  Boker 
in  Philadelphia  had  done  no  ordinary  work;  that  American 
drama,  from  the  Revolution,  was  no  insignificant  quan 
tity,  however  varying  the  quality.  What  was  needed  seemed 
to  be  confidence  in  native  ability  and  in  native  discernment; 
what  was  needed  proved  to  be  a  local  dramatic  market  for 
modern  wares.  Mr.  Howard  was  the  founder  of  such  a 
market.  It  was  confidence  on  his  part  that  cleared  the  way 
for  the  present.  And  by  right  of  this  struggle,  dramatic 
history  should  stamp  him,  as  others  in  his  family  have  been 
stamped,  as  pioneer  in  his  particular  field. 

NOTE 

Mr.  Howard  died  in  1908.     His  plays  appeared  in  the  following 

order,  the  star  indicating  that  they  have  been  published  in  French's 

"Standard  Drama": 

"Fantine"  (1864),  "Saratoga"  (1870),  "Diamonds"  (1872),  "Moor- 
croft;  or,  The  Double  Wedding"  (1874),  "Hurricanes"  (1878, 
—  called  "Truth"  in  England),  "Old  Love  Letters"  *  (1878), 
"The  Banker's  Daughter"  *  (1878  —  called  in  England  "The 
Old  Love  and  the  New";  also  known  as  "Lillian's  Last 
Love"),  "Baron  Rudolph"  (1881),  "Young  Mrs.  Winthrop"  * 
(1882),  "One  of  Our  Girls"  *  (1885),  "Met  by  Chance"  (1887), 
"The  Henrietta"  *  (1887),  "Shenandoah"  *  (1889),  "Aristoc 
racy"  *  (1892),  "Kate"  *  (1906  — Harper  &  Bros.). 

In  1879,  Mr.  Howard  also  wrote  "Wives,"  in  which  scenes  from 
Moliere's  "L'Ecole  de  Maris"  and  "L'Ecole  des  Femmes" 
were  blended.  He  likewise  wrote  "Peter  Stuyvesant  "  (1899),  in 
conjunction  with  Professor  Brander  Matthews.  In  the  casts 
presenting  the  comedies  we  note  such  names  as  Sara  Jewett, 
W.  J.  LeMoyne,  J.  H.  Stoddart,  George  Clarke,  Henry  Miller, 
Agnes  Booth,  E.  H.  Sothern,  Viola  Allen,  and  Wilton  Lackaye. 
The  early  actors  were  the  most  important,  and  they  included 
Fanny  Davenport,  Clara  Morris,  and  their  contemporaries. 


CHAPTER  VI 

JAMES  A.  HERNE  AND  THE  REALISTIC  DRAMA 

IT  is  rarely  that  the  American  people  have  touched  the  soil 
in  literature,  but  when  they  have,  the  result  has  been  of  the 
most  distinctive  order.  As  a  nation,  we  are  too  young  to 
have  realized  any  large  and  original  problems  in  literature. 
Our  authors  have  been  more  or  less  imitators  of  English 
models,  and  even  to-day  our  stage  is  attempting  to  explain 
American  conditions  by  means  of  a  technique  which  is  not  a 
native  technique.  We  have  perhaps  brought  the  short  story 
to  a  stage  of  perfection  which  can  only  be  equaled  by  a  few 
of  the  French  writers;  but  our  poetry  has  been  largely 
imitative,  our  essays  reminiscent  of  the  eighteenth  century 
flavor  in  England,  and  our  fiction  by  no  means  fraught  with 
the  full  value  of  American  life  and  American  characteristics. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  American  drama,  although  at  the 
present  time  there  is  a  decided  tendency  on  the  part  of  the 
popular  dramatist  to  deal  with  subjects  that  are  closely 
related  to  the  lives  of  American  audiences.  The  position 
which  W.  D.  Howells  occupies  is  assuredly  one  of  the  most 
original  impulses  evident  in  the  recent  history  of  American 
letters.  He  has  been  the  means  of  educating  the  people 
away  from  the  stereotyped  formulas  of  romanticism;  and 
while  he  has  done  much  to  create  a  realistic  rut  in  fiction,  he 
has  nevertheless  enforced  the  undoubted  fact  that  there  is 
as  much  richness,  if  not  indeed  more  truth,  in  the  common 
life  of  the  land,  as  in  the  idealism  which  has  no  intimate 


JAMES  A.   HERNE  91 

relation  with  the  fibre  of  the  community.  Unfortunately, 
we  are  prone,  in  our  literary  criticism,  to  overlook  the  work 
that  is  being  done  along  the  same  lines  in  American  drama. 
Take  any  handbook  of  literature,  and  note  how  absolutely 
the  activity  of  the  American  playwright  is  ignored.  The 
literary  critic  has  not  yet  awakened  to  the  fact  of  the  impor 
tance  of  a  body  of  native  dramaturgy.  Otherwise,  did  he 
know  the  history  of  playwriting,  he  would  not  show  so  thor 
oughly  his  ignorance  of  one  of  the  rare  strains  in  American 
drama  —  as  distinctive,  as  invigorating,  and  as  important 
as  that  impulse  given  by  Mr.  Howells  to  American  letters. 
I  refer  to  the  solid  calibre  of  the  dramas  of  James  A.  Herne. 

In  his  book  on  "Criticism  and  Fiction,"  Mr.  Howells, 
speaking  of  the  imitative  instinct  of  the  average  American 
writer,  says  truthfully  that  in  general  "he  is  instructed  to 
idealize  his  personages,  that  is,  to  take  the  lifelikeness  out  of 
them,  and  put  the  booklikeness  into  them."  And  he  adds 
furthermore,  as  a  hopeful  sign,  that  "now  we  are  beginning 
to  see  and  to  say  that  no  author  is  an  authority,  except  in 
those  moments  when  he  held  his  ear  close  to  Nature's  lips, 
and  caught  her  very  accents."  Probably  our  universities 
are  overdoing  the  desire  to  discount  the  originality  of  an 
author,  in  the  zeal  to  submit  his  work  to  the  test  of  those 
scientific  principles  underlying  the  theory  of  comparative 
literature.  As  far  as  the  sane  evaluation  of  realism  is  con 
cerned,  that  author  is  real  who  faithfully  interprets  the  en 
vironment  with  which  he  is  most  familiar.  And  in  this 
respect,  no  one  can  lay  better  claim  to  the  highest  realiza 
tion  of  the  term  than  Mr.  Herne  himself. 

Considered  in  the  light  of  sound  standards,  he  may  be  said 
to  represent  the  most  original  strain  that  the  American 
drama  has  produced.  Let  us  grant  that  in  his  plots  he  in 
vents  conventional  situations  which  are  detrimental  to  the 
perfection  of  his  stagecraft.  Let  us  acknowledge  that  his 


92  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

comedy  is  ofttimes  low  comedy,  although  his  humor  is  of  the 
very  kindliest  and  of  the  most  human  quality.  Let  us  fur 
thermore  realize  fully  that,  having  acted  in  the  old  school, 
having  assumed  characters  of  diverse  range,  Mr.  Herne  un 
consciously  resorted  to  an  invention  which  was  more  imi 
tative  than  original.  Yet,  notwithstanding  this,  he  is  en 
titled  to  the  very  highest  consideration,  because  of  the  fact 
that  in  the  midst  of  romantic,  melodramatic,  and  old-fashioned 
tragic  conceptions,  which  found  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the 
American  public,  he  put  his  ear  close  to  the  heart  of  the 
common  life,  and  drew  from  the  most  ordinary  experiences 
the  poetry  of  a  simple,  fundamental  existence. 

The  surprising  characteristic  which  strikes  one  after  having 
read  Mr.  Herne 's  manuscripts,  is  the  wonderful  clarity  of 
vision  which,  through  the  medium  of  the  most  matter-of- 
fact  details,  through  the  wonderful  power  of  clear  and  direct 
expression,  could  raise  the  common  level  of  daily  existence 
to  the  realm  of  the  most  tragic  drama  on  the  one  hand,  and 
to  the  realm  of  the  most  genial,  warm-hearted,  and  pure 
rural  comedy  on  the  other.  This  is  not  over-exaggeration 
or  over-enthusiasm,  because  one  cannot  help  realizing  the 
faults  in  Mr.  Herne 's  technique,  through  the  very  existence 
in  the  midst  of  those  faults  of  the  highest  type  of  dramatic 
literature. 

His  work,  as  a  whole,  is  only  another  illustration  of  the 
undoubted  fact  that  American  life  —  the  true  American  life 
—  lies  between  great  cities;  that  there  is  more  of  the  native 
stamina  in  the  small  community  than  in  the  abnormal 
community,  where  a  mixture  of  all  nations  constitutes  the 
civic  body.  Mr.  Howells  has  studied  the  humanity  of  this 
intermediate  life/  and  his  work  is  distinctively  native; 
whereas  that  of  Mrs.  Edith  Wharton  is  wholly  imitative  of 
the  English  school,  as  a  certain  class  of  life  in  America  is 
imitative  of  English  life. 


JAMES  A.  HEK 


JAMES  A.   HERNE  93 

When  Mr.  Herne 's  attention  was  drawn  away  from  the 
melodrama  with  which  he  had  met  favor,  he  seemed  to  have 
been  prompted  by  a  kind  of  intuitive  realization  of  what  the 
modern  movement  in  literature  was  to  be.  Some  would  like 
to  say  that  the  influences  which  were  brought  to  bear  upon 
him  at  the  time  he  wrote  "Margaret  Fleming"  and  "Griffith 
Davenport"  were  the  foreign  influences  of  such  men  as  Tol 
stoi  and  Ibsen ;  but  the  impetus  given  to  Mr.  Herne  was  more 
inward  than  external.  He  may  be  said  to  have  been  endowed 
with  that  luminosity  of  spiritual  vision  which  saw  the  even 
tual  potency  of  the  common  life,  and  which  kept  him,  even 
at  an  advanced  age,  thoroughly  attuned  to  the  progressive 
movements,  making  him  an  ardent  reader  of  the  philosophic 
thinkers,  as  well  as  a  warm  adherent  of  the  economic  theo 
ries  of  Henry  George. 

Mr.  Herne  was  born  on  February  1,  1839,  at  Cohoes,  New 
York,  of  Irish  parentage,  his  father,  Patrick  Herne,  being 
a  tradesman  of  the  town.  Save  for  the  fact  that  he  received 
the  bare  rudiments  of  an  education,  Mr.  Herne,  intellectu 
ally  as  well  as  materially,  may  be  taken  as  a  type  of  that 
self-made  man  which  we  Americans  rightfully  exalt.  In  his 
early  years  he  had  to  earn  his  livelihood,  and  this  he  did  in 
various  subordinate  positions;  while,  with  the  yearning  of 
the  average  boy,  his  tastes  were  turned  toward  the  sea. 
Though  he  did  not,  with  the  usual  inclination  of  the  average 
boy,  slip  off  and  ship  upon  a  merchantman,  he  retained,  until 
the  day  of  his  death,  an  insatiable  love  of  the  water.  The 
rebellion  against  conditions,  however,  resulted  in  his  running 
away  at  the  age  of  twenty,  and  joining  a  theatrical  company 
which  was  playing  at  the  Adelphi  Theatre  in  Troy.  Here 
he  appeared  during  April,  1859,  in  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin." 
Upon  the  authority  of  Clapp,  however,  it  is  said  that  his 
first  appearance  was  made  in  an  amateur  performance  of 
"Toodles,"  which  took  place  a  short  while  previous  to  this 


94  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

at  Schenectady.  At  the  Adelphi  he  supported  James  B. 
Roberts,  assuming  such  characters  as  Horatio,  Cassio,  and 
Bassanio.  His  uncle  was  the  treasurer  of  the  house. 

That  Herne  was  equal  to  any  emergency  may  be  inferred 
from  the  fact  that  one  evening,  when  Roberts  appeared  as 
Richard  III,  the  young  actor  was  ticketed  for  the  three 
roles  of  Tressel,  Oxford,  and  Buckingham.  He  was  indefati 
gable  in  his  ambition,  although  at  the  time  he  must  have 
been  sorely  pressed  for  the  necessary  income  which  would 
supply  him  with  a  theatrical  wardrobe.  For,  during  one 
summer,  he  returned  to  a  brush  factory  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Cohoes,  working  away  to  eke  out  his  small  salary,  at  the 
same  time,  with  the  artful  enthusiasm  of  a  young  man, 
keeping  his  father  in  ignorance  of  his  true  profession. 

His  next  engagement  was  at  the  Gaiety  Theatre  in  Albany; 
and  from  there  he  went  to  the  Holliday  Street  Theatre  in 
Baltimore,  which  was  under  the  management  of  Ford.  There 
he  remained  until  1864;  and  it  should  be  recorded  that  he 
likewise  played  in  Washington  at  the  theatre  in  which  Lin 
coln  was  killed.  In  1869,  he  was  for  a  period  manager  of  the 
New  York  Grand  Opera  House;  and  thereafter  he  toured 
with  Susan  Denning  along  the  Pacific  slope.  Then  followed 
several  seasons  as  leading  man  with  Lucille  Western,  during 
which  engagement  he  assumed  such  parts  as  Bill  Sykes  and 
Sir  Francis  Levison,  succeeding  E.  L.  Davenport  in  the  re 
pertoire  roles.  Mr.  Herne 's  first  wife  was  Miss  Helen  Wes 
tern,  whom  he  married  on  July  17,  1866. 

When  the  actor  finally  went  to  Baldwin's  Theatre,  in  San 
Francisco,  it  was  under  the  management  of  Thomas  Maguire. 
He  served  in  the  capacity  of  stage  director,  as  well  as  assum 
ing  an  infinite  number  of  roles,  among  those  to  be  remembered 
because  of  their  human  unctuousness  being  his  Dickens 
characterizations  of  Daniel  Peggotty  and  Captain  Cuttle.  It 
was  while  serving  in  this  capacity  that  David  Belasco,  a 


JAMES  A.   HERNE  95 

much  younger  man  than  Mr.  Herne,  came  under  his  influence 
and  profited  by  his  training.  For  though  Mr.  Belasco  had 
much  originality  and  enthusiasm,  his  work  needed  the  guid 
ance  of  such  an  experienced  actor  as  Mr.  Herne.  And  it 
may  be  said  that  this  meeting  with  Belasco  first  suggested 
to  the  stage  manager  his  own  powers  as  a  writer  of 
plays. 

From  now  on,  the  career  of  James  A.  Herne  may  be  con 
sidered  entirely  from  the  standpoint  of  his  literary  develop 
ment  and  of  his  personal  expansion.  For,  peculiarly,  events 
in  his  life  are  not  so  significant  as  the  intimate  association 
with  a  very  few  people,  who  might  be  said  to  have  acted  as 
much  upon  his  artistic  unfolding  as  any  of  the  subtle  forces 
which  are  supposed  to  mould  the  characters  of  men.  The 
most  important  event  in  Mr.  Herne 's  life,  both  intellectually 
and  spiritually,  was  his  second  marriage  with  Miss  Katherine 
Corcoran,  on  April  3,  1878. 

As  a  matter  of  mere  romantic  record,  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that  one  evening,  during  Mr.  Herne 's  engagement  in 
San  Francisco  and  before  his  second  marriage,  while  he  was 
playing  Bill  Sykes,  there  was  present  in  the  gallery  a  very 
much  excited  and  overwrought  girl;  this  happened  to  be 
Katherine  Corcoran.  It  is  also  interesting  to  read,  that  in 
November,  1877,  Julia  Melville,  a  dramatic  reader,  had  a 
pupil  of  whom  she  was  especially  proud,  and  one  whom  she 
was  anxious  to  have  Mr.  Herne  see.  So  he  slipped  into  the 
room  one  morning,  to  hear  this  young  girl  while  she  was  at 
work;  it  was  Katherine  Corcoran.  Mrs.  Herne 's  father  had 
fought  on  the  Union  side  in  the  Civil  War.  While  still  in 
her  teens,  she  went  to  California,  where  after  studying,  she 
gained  experience  in  stock  at  a  Portland  theatre,  thereafter 
joining  James  O'Neill  and  William  Seymour  at  the  Baldwin 
Theatre.  One  of  her  initial  successes  was  as  Peg  Woffing- 
ton  in  "Masks  and  Faces." 


96  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

There  was  not  a  move  which  Mr.  Herne  was  to  make  in 
the  future  that  did  not  bear  the  impress  of  her  inspiration. 
She  it  was  who  started  him  definitely  on  his  career  as  a  dram 
atist;  she  it  was  who  encouraged  him  in  those  hours  when, 
after  having  written  "Margaret  Fleming"  and  "The  Rev. 
Griffith  Davenport,"  he  found  himself  shut  off  from  all 
managerial  hearing,  because  of  the  fact  that  he  had  deter 
mined  to  cut  aloof  from  melodrama  and  to  seek  for  the  truth 
in  the  commonplace. 

From  his  career  thus  hastily  sketched,  there  are  a  few 
significant  factors  to  be  gleaned.  While  at  the  Baldwin 
Theatre,  Mr.  Herne  came  under  the  influence  of  the  Bouci- 
cault  drama  and  of  that  type  of  melodrama  which  was  rep 
resented  by  such  a  success  as  "The  Danicheffs."  So  that 
it  is  not  surprising  to  find  "Hearts  of  Oak,"  "The  Minute 
Men,"  and  "Drifting  Apart"  tinged  with  those  large  emo 
tions  which  might  almost  be  said  to  lack  subtlety.  Even  in 
"  Shore  Acres, "  during  the  scene  in  which  Uncle  Nat  struggles 
with  Martin  in  his  effort  to  light  the  signal  lamp,  the  sen 
sational  is  very  much  in  evidence;  but  the  unerring  art  of 
Mr.  Herne  saved  him  from  the  accusation  of  intense,  glaring 
melodrama.  He  understood  thoroughly  the  balance  between 
tension  and  quietude,  and  there  is  no  bit  of  stage  writing 
more  natural,  more  cheerful,  and  more  real  than  the  act 
which  succeeded  this  violent  one  in  "Shores  Acres,"  Uncle 
Nat  preparing  the  Christmas  stockings.  Those  who  are  for 
tunate  enough  to  recollect  the  wonderful  naturalness  of  Mr. 
Herne 's  acting,  will  always  point  to  the  final  curtain  of  this 
play,  where  Uncle  Nat,  left  alone  on  the  stage,  by  the  very 
flexibility  of  his  facial  expression,  depicted  the  full  beauty  of 
his  character,  as  he  closed  up  the  room  for  the  night,  put  out 
the  lamps,  and,  lighted  only  by  the  glow  from  the  fire  in  the 
stove,  slowly  left  the  room  as  the  cuckoo  clock  struck  twelve. 
Such  work,  of  which  Mr.  Herne  as  an  actor  was  capable,  is 


JAMES  A.   HERNE  97 

to  a  certain  extent  the  realization  of  Maeterlinck's  idea  of 
the  static  drama. 

After  seeing  "Shore  Acres  "  in  1893,  Henry  George  wrote: 

"I  cannot  too  much  congratulate  you  upon  your  success. 
You  have  done  what  you  have  sought  to  do  —  made  a  play 
pure  and  noble  that  people  will  come  to  hear.  You  have 
taken  the  strength  of  realism  and  added  to  it  the  strength 
that  comes  from  the  wider  truth  that  realism  fails  to  see; 
and  in  the  simple  portrayal  of  homely  life,  touched  a  univer 
sal  chord.  .  .  .  Who,  save  you,  can  bring  out  the  character 
you  have  created  —  a  character  which  to  others,  as  to  me, 
must  have  recalled  the  tender  memory  of  some  sweet  saint 
of  God." 

Having  made  a  comfortable  fortune  with  the  success  of 
"Hearts  of  Oak,"  Mr.  Herne's  progress,  up  to  the  time  of 
"Shore  Acres,"  was  marked  by  persistent  opposition  and 
lack  of  financial  success.  This  initial  play  of  his,  which, 
when  first  produced  at  the  Baldwin  Theatre  on  September 
9,  1879,  was  known  as  "Chums,"  was,  in  many  of  its  de 
tails,  based  on  "The  Mariner's  Compass,"  by  Henry  Leslie. 
Its  main  plot  was  used  again  in  "Sag  Harbor;"  and  despite 
the  fact  that  it  contained  many  stereo  typed  romantic  speeches, 
it  is  well  at  the  outset  to  note  that  gift  which  Mr.  Herne 
possessed  —  the  gift  of  simplicity,  which  never  deserted  him, 
no  matter  how  old-fashioned  and  unoriginal  some  of  his 
scenes  might  be.  There  are  countless  plays  and  stories 
dealing  with  a  marriage  between  a  girl  and  her  guardian, 
which  at  first  is  over-clouded  by  the  fact  that  the  girl  loves 
another,  but  which  finally  ripens  into  a  full  happiness  and  a 
satisfactory  ending.  One  cannot  quite  accept  those  heroes 
of  fiction  or  drama,  however  mature  and  settled,  who  would 
give  up  their  wives  because  of  a  conscience. 

But  these  incongruities  were  more  than  overbalanced  by 
Mr.  Herne's  inimitable  handling  of  the  commonplace  in 


98  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

life.  He  was  able  to  breathe  into  his  dialogue  those  small, 
playful  expressions  that  lighten  up  the  whole  character.  At 
one  moment  serious,  he  never  allowed  himself  —  except  in 
the  case  of  "Margaret  Fleming"  —  to  subject  his  audiences 
to  unrelieved  strain.  The  papers,  in  receiving  his  so-called 
domestic  dramas,  showed  surprise  over  the  effectiveness  of 
the  commonplace.  They  were  not  used  to  the  little  happen 
ings  of  home  life,  to  the  glorification  of  those  situations  which 
abound  in  comradeship,  and  of  those  quiet  scenes  with  a  baby 
which  are  successful  on  the  stage  only  when  the  actor  pos 
sesses  that  great  art  which  alone  knows  how  to  deal  with  quiet 
detail. 

"Hearts  of  Oak"  exhibited  the  influence  of  Dickens  in 
its  character  portrayal.  Judged  by  the  standards  that  we 
now  have  in  these  times  of  ultra-realism,  we  might  call  the 
sentiment  old-fashioned,  we  might  even  notice  certain  speeches 
which  point  a  moral  rather  than  adorn  the  tale.  No  one, 
however,  could  ever  accuse  Mr.  Herne  of  being  "preachy," 
—  he  had  that  exquisite  sense  of  justice  and  of  the  fitness  of 
things  which,  when  the  time  came  for  him  to  write  "The 
Rev.  Griffith  Davenport,"  showed  itself  to  a  high  degree, 
inasmuch  as,  dealing  with  a  circuit  rider  of  the  South  and 
likewise  with  the  problem  of  slavery,  he  could  have  fallen 
into  the  error  of  the  average  dramatist  who,  handling  the 
same  subject,  has  generally  falsified  the  truth  in  attempting 
to  thrust  forward  personal  theories.  "Drifting  Apart" 
is  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  powerful  temperance  sermons 
ever  put  on  the  stage,  unless  we  except  the  successful  melo 
drama,  "Drink."  Yet  there  is  little  of  distinction  in  the 
actual  script  of  the  piece,  save  the  suggested  possibilities  in 
the  acting  that  were  so  marked  on  its  first  presentation  at  the 
People's  Theatre  in  New  York,  on  May  7,  1888.  Mrs. 
Herne  assumed  the  role  of  Mary  Miller,  and  infused  it  with 
a  subtle  interpretation  of  art  for  truth's  sake,  a  character- 


JAMES  A.  HERNE  99 

istic  most  distinctive  in  her  work.  Mr.  Garland  spoke  of  it 
in  these  terms:  "It  was  so  utterly  opposed  to  the  tragedy  of 
the  legitimate.  Here  was  tragedy  that  appalled  and  fasci 
nated  like  the  great  fact  of  living.  .  .  .  The  fourth  act  was 
like  one  of  Millet's  paintings." 

And  here  it  is  well  to  note  a  wonderful  point  marking  Mr. 
Herne's  activity.  His  lines  of  life  were  so  cast  that  he  was 
denied  the  advantages  of  the  student,  although  he  possessed 
the  mind  of  the  scholar.  Without  any  apparent  effort  on  his 
part,  he  absorbed  the  best  literature,  and  it  was  an  easy  matter 
for  him  to  reach  the  heart  of  any  subject  which  attracted  his 
attention.  Although  he  set  himself  down  to  write  a  melo 
drama  when  he  began  "The  Minute  Men,"  and  although, 
because  of  this  very  self-consciousness  on  his  part,  he  failed  in 
his  attempt,  he  was  nevertheless  successful  in  attaining  a  cer 
tain  atmosphere  of  historical  reality,  akin  to  the  true  Revo 
lutionary  spirit.  This  was  more  solidly  and  more  artistically 
accomplished  in  "The  Rev.  Griffith  Davenport,"1  which  is 
one  of  Mr.  Herne  's  best  contributions  to  dramatic  literature, 
however  much  we  might  be  inclined  to  claim  that  "Sag 
Harbor"  contains  his  most  finished  writing.  Of  all  Civil 
War  dramas  it  is  assuredly  the  finest  example  of  a  balance  of 
truth,  artistic  situation,  and  equal  justice  to  both  sides,  which 
is  lacking  in  "Shenandoah"  and  "The  Heart  of  Maryland." 
The  point  of  view  is  one  which  might  be  said  to  be  as  much 
Southern  as  Northern.  The  principle  of  slavery  was  antag 
onistic  to  Mr.  Herne's  social  philosophy;  and  should  the 
bias  be  found  at  all  in  this  play,  it  would  lie  in  his  interpre 
tation  of  duty  as  confronting  Griffith  Davenport.  For  the 
Southerner  was  fighting  as  much  to  sustain  State  rights  as 
to  protect  his  slave  property;  historical  fact  will  show  that 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  slavery  as  an  institution  was 

1  Based  on  Helen  H.  Gardner's  novel,  "The  Unofficial  Patriot." 


100  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

decreasing  through  an  economic,  evolutionary  change.  Dav 
enport's  struggle  was  not  so  much  that  of  a  Southerner  who 
was  torn  between  his  duty  to  State  and  his  duty  to  country, 
as  it  was  the  conception  of  Mr.  Herne,  whose  idea  of  duty 
was  wholly  from  the  standpoint  of  country,  and  not  from 
that  of  State.  The  atmosphere  of  the  drama  is  very  success 
fully  obtained  through  the  handling  of  the  simple  details  of 
Southern  life.  Perhaps  there  was  an  over-accentuation  of 
the  darky  characteristics,  but  they  were  not  the  customary 
antics  of  the  stage  minstrel  or  of  the  conventional  Southern 
drama.  As  a  playwright,  Mr.  Herne  infused  into  his  darkies 
that  same  strain  of  humanity  which  he  is  said  to  have  put 
into  a  negro  character-part  he  once  played  with  such  deter 
mined  and  realistic  villainy. 

It  is  significant  to  obtain  Mr.  Herne 's  own  estimate  of  his 
different  plays.  We  find  him  analyzing  the  cause  for  this 
success  and  for  that  failure;  we  hear  him  making  a  confession 
that  although  "  Hearts  of  Oak, "  in  its  dealing  with  Marble- 
head  folk,  was  a  new  departure,  since  it  had  neither  hero 
nor  villain,  it  was  crude  in  construction.  With  a  simple 
naivete,  he  recognized  in  "The  Minute  Men,"  with  its  Paul 
Revere 's  ride  and  its  Battle  of  Lexington,  a  step  nearer  the 
truth;  while  in  its  character  of  Dorothy  Foxglove  it  afforded 
a  "glorious"  role  for  Mrs.  Herne.  He  was  frank  enough  to 
confess  that  in  "Drifting  Apart,"  his  story  of  Gloucester 
fishermen,  based  on  "Mary,  the  Fisher's  Child,"  there  was 
displayed  a  weak  comedy  element  in  the  introduction  of  the 
stage  soubrette  and  the  funny  man.  Even  in  "  Margaret  Flem 
ing,"  he  evidently  felt  that  there  were  didactic  spots  in  the 
dialogue.  So  that  by  this  self-criticism  of  the  artist,  we  are 
able,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  catch  glimpses  of  the  whole-souled 
sincerity  of  the  man,  who  sought  truth  externally,  simply 
because  he  saw  clearly  its  spirit.  As  he  has  written:  "Art 
is  a  personal  expression  of  life.  The  finer  the  form  and  color 


JAMES  A.  HERNE  101 

and  the  larger  the  truth,  the  higher  the  art.  .  .  .  Art  is  uni 
versal;  it  can  be  claimed  by  no  man,  creed,  race,  or  time, 
and  all  art  is  good." 

The  change  that  came  over  Mr.  Herne  after  having  pro 
duced  "  Drifting  Apart "  was  coincident  with  an  intellectual 
and  spiritual  change  affecting  both  himself  and  his  wife. 
As  I  have  said,  they  were  mentally  receptive  of  new  ideas. 
They  were  following,  in  Huxley,  in  Spencer,  in  Howells,  in 
Tolstoi,  those  tendencies,  which,  attracting  one  to  higher 
conceptions  of  ethical  duty  and  of  social  justice,  brought  one 's 
view-point  nearer  to  the  common  life.  Mrs.  Herne  was 
always  mentally  keen.  Hamlin  Garland  writes  of  her: 
"To  see  her  radiant  with  intellectual  enthusiasm,  one  has 
but  to  start  a  discussion  of  the  nebular  hypothesis,  or  to 
touch  upon  the  atomic  theory,  or  doubt  the  inconceivability 
of  matter.  She  is  perfectly  oblivious  to  space  and  time  if 
she  can  get  some  one  to  discuss  Flammarion's  supersensuous 
world  of  force,  Mr.  George's  theory  of  land-holding,  or 
Spencer's  law  of  progress." 

The  next  artistic  effort  that  Mr.  Herne  put  his  hand  to 
was  by  no  means  fraught  with  elements  of  popularity.  It 
was  truth  laid  bare,  with  no  gloss  of  romanticism  about  it, 
however  much  it  might  be  saturated  with  feeling;  souls 
stark  naked  in  their  sin,  and  in  their  vigorous  dealing  with 
sin.  One  marvels,  after  having  read  "Margaret  Fleming," 
what  there  is  of  tangible  literary  value  in  such  a  story,  for 
one  undoubtedly  feels  its  value.  It  proves  nothing,  it  has  no 
direct  intent;  it  is  a  segment  of  life  painted  with  no  idea  of 
gaining  art  effects,  but  showing  how  very  close  to  life  one's 
vision  may  be.  The  realism  is  almost  pitiless  in  its  conse 
quences;  it  is  almost  photographic  in  its  detail.  It  is  the 
commonplace  story  of  the  man  who  goes  wrong,  and  whose 
illegitimate  child  is  nurtured  by  his  wife  after  she  has  dis 
covered  his  transgressions.  It  is  the  close  tragedy  of  a 


102  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

woman's  struggle  to  estimate  at  its  full  worth  the  animal 
instinct  in  man. 

For  the  student  of  American  drama,  Mr.  Herne's  activity 
as  a  writer  falls  easily  into  two  classes.  We  may  narrow  our 
consideration  down,  so  as  to  include  "Margaret  Fleming" 
and  "The  Rev.  Griffith  Davenport"  on  the  one  hand,  with 
"Shore  Acres"  and  "Sag  Harbor"  on  the  other;  the  former 
representing  his  realism,  and  the  latter  representing  —  if 
we  must  designate  him  by  a  term  —  his  rural  characteristics 
which  were  more  vital  than  those  of  Denman  Thompson,  as 
seen  in  "The  Old  Homestead."1  When  "Margaret  Flem 
ing"  was  ready  for  presentation,  the  dramatist  found  him 
self  in  a  peculiar  position,  for  no  manager  dared  risk  capital 
on  a  piece  so  freed  from  what  the  public  was  usually  accus 
tomed  to,  and  so  devoid  of  a  happy  ending.  Likewise,  there 
were  certain  situations  which  appeared  to  shock  the  conven 
tional  taste.  It  was  at  this  time  that  Hamlin  Garland 
began  to  take  that  interest  in  the  Herne  family  which  rap 
idly  ripened  into  the  deepest  friendship.  He  and  Mr. 
Howells  seemed  to  recognize  the  rare  originality  which  lay 
in  the  simple  style  of  Mr.  Herne's  work.  Even  in  "Drift 
ing  Apart,"  melodramatic  though  it  was,  there  were  certain 
direct,  incisive,  and  simple  passages  of  writing  that  partook 
of  the  very  highest  and  best  qualities  in  realism. 

So  that,  naturally,  "Margaret  Fleming"2  perforce  appealed 
to  these  two  literary  men,  who  became  so  far  interested  as 
not  only  to  suggest  the  idea,  but  to  further  the  scheme  of 
leasing  Chickering  Hall  in  Boston,  and  of  presenting  the 
play  to  an  intellectual  assemblage  which,  unfortunately,  is 


1  Mr.  Thompson  (1833-1011)  was  not  prolific.  "The  Old  Home 
stead"  was  originally  called  "Joshua  Whitcornb." 

1  "Shore  Acres"  was  really  being  evolved  by  Mr.  Herne  before 
the  writing  of  "Margaret  Fleming."  The  play  was  dedicated  to 
his  children,  Julie,  Chrystal,  and  Dorothy. 


JAMES  A.  HERNE  103 

difficult  to  gather  together  for  a  theatre  performance.  The 
piece  ran  for  several  weeks,  but  it  was  a  financial  failure,  al 
though  the  press  recognized  a  certain  subtle  force,  a  certain 
plain  and  vital  power  which  were  rarely  seen  upon  the  stage. 
This  was  in  the  year  1890,  when  Ibsen  was  practically  un 
known  to  the  American  theatre-going  public,  when  the  slight 
est  deviation  from  the  accepted  conventions  of  morality  was 
regarded  as  boldness.  It  was  this  attitude  of  mind  more 
than  anything  which  the  play  itself  contained,  that  involved 
it  in  such  disastrous  consequences.  When  the  piece  was 
revived  at  the  Art  Theatre  in  Chicago,  during  1907,  with 
Miss  Chrystal  Herne  in  the  title  role  and  with  Mrs.  Herne 
as  stage  manager,  all  of  the  critics  recognized  its  forcefulness 
and  its  serious  simplicity,  deploring  the  fact  that  it  had  re 
mained  in  obscurity  for  so  long  a  time,  when  in  every  respect 
one  was  justified  in  regarding  it  as  a  high  specimen  of  Ameri 
can  dramatic  art. 

Mr.  Herne's  next  piece,  "The  Rev.  Griffith  Davenport,"1 
met  with  the  same  cold  reception,  and  it  is  natural  to  find 
him  becoming  somewhat  discouraged  as  to  the  possibilities  of 
carrying  the  American  public  with  him  along  the  lines  which 
meant  most  to  him,  and  which  he  was  best  fitted  to  follow. 
So  he  determined  thereafter  to  add  popular  qualities  to  his 
stark  realism.  Not  for  a  moment  could  he  have  discarded 
his  innate  ability  to  deal  with  simple  things;  but  he  drew 
upon  the  stock  subterfuges  of  the  old  school,  at  times  becom 
ing  a  little  over-sentimental,  whereas  one  of  the  beauties  of 
"Margaret  Fleming"  was  the  depth  of  its  tragic  sentiment. 

The  interstices  between  the  completion  of  his  several 
pieces  were  filled  up  by  Mr.  Herne's  acting,  and  likewise 
by  his  excellent  stage  management,  which  was  always  in 
demand  for  large  productions.  There  are  some  who  believe 

1  It  was  begun  in  the  summer  of  1894,  and  not  produced  until 
1899. 


104  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

that  as  a  stage  manager  Mr.  Herne's  influence  upon  the  pres 
ent  is  more  marked  than  as  a  dramatist.  Through  kindly 
guidance  and  illuminating  interpretation,  he  impressed  his 
methods  upon  all  of  the  actors  who  were  under  his  care;  and 
many  on  the  stage  to-day  regard  Mr.  Herne  as  the  one  force 
which  meant  most  to  them  in  their  careers.  But  in  the 
future,  Mr.  Herne's  position  will  be  dependent  entirely  upon 
his  value  as  a  dramatist. 

There  are  a  few  facts,  leading  up  to  the  close  of  Mr.  Herne's 
life,  which  have  to  be  regarded.  After  going  to  Boston, 
around  1890,  he  lived  in  a  modest  little  home  at  Ashmont, 
in  the  suburbs.  The  failure  of  "Margaret  Fleming"  was 
coincident  with  a  rather  unsettled  period  in  the  history  of 
literary  Boston,  a  period  which  —  to  use  Mr.  Garland's 
expression  —  was  marked  by  a  discovery  of  the  fact  that 
to  meet  success  every  one  had  to  go  to  New  York.  So  that 
about  the  same  time  he,  Mr.  Howells,  and  Mr.  Herne  all 
went  to  that  city.  It  was  not  until  1894  that  Mr.  Herne 
moved  with  his  family  to  his  estate  in  Southampton,  Long 
Island,  where  the  dramatist  did  much  of  his  final  writing, 
and  where  he  was  able  to  satisfy  his  love  of  the  sea  and  his 
thorough  enjoyment  of  home  life.  At  this  time  one  would 
be  sure  to  note  his  fondness  for  the  fields  and  his  enthusiasm 
for  tennis  and  bicycling.  Simple  of  heart  and  boyish  in 
action,  there  was  nothing  so  important  that  he  would  not 
spare  the  time  to  mend  a  broken  doll  for  his  daughter  Dorothy. 
Here  also  he  was  drawn  more  and  more  into  interests  other 
than  those  dealing  with  drama.  His  reading  became  broader, 
his  political  opinions  became  pronounced,  in  fact  so  pro 
nounced  as  to  demand  his  time  for  public  speaking  in  the 
interests  of  Henry  George.  So  ardent  was  he  in  his 
acceptance  of  the  doctrine  of  free  access  to  the  soil,  that 
his  theatrical  manager  at  one  time  advised  him  to  be  more 
careful,  inasmuch  as  his  theatre  audiences  might  resent  his 


JAMES  A.   HERNE  105 

political  views.  But  Mr.  Herne  was  not  a  man  to  fear 
consequences.  To  the  day  of  his  death,  June  2,  1901,  he 
was  an  ardent  supporter  of  Bryan. 

It  is  hard  to  separate  a  consideration  of  Mr.  Herne  the 
dramatist,  from  an  estimate  of  Mr.  Herne  the  man.  His 
plays  contain  unmistakable  signs  of  that  wonderful  kindli 
ness  of  spirit  which  was  so  marked  in  his  daily  association 
with  people.  He  was  a  man  who,  in  exterior,  might  be  con 
sidered  blunt;  but  Nature  often  endows  a  person  gifted  with 
a  love  for  the  human  with  a  certain  protection  against  a  too 
ready  acceptance  of  everyone.  And  so  that  guest  was  for 
tunate  who  succeeded  in  breaking  through  the  reserve, 
behind  which  lay  the  true  James  A.  Herne,  inveterate  joker, 
good  comrade,  and  active  thinker.  In  him  there  was  an  in 
exhaustible  fund  of  joy  and,  as  one  critic  said,  he  was  always 
intellectually  young.  This  was  strikingly  evident  in  his 
association  with  his  own  children,  the  family  comprising 
three  daughters  and  one  son:  Julie  Herne,  who  has  already 
very  creditably  illustrated  her  inherited  gift  of  playwriting 
in  "Richter's  Wife"  —  given  a  hearing  several  years  ago; 
Chrystal  Herne,  who  has  done  some  distinctive  acting;  and 
Dorothy  Herne  who  was  on  the  stage  for  several  years, 
appearing  in  "Shore  Acres."  The  three  have  all  appeared 
severally  and  together  in  the  juvenile  roles  of  their  father's 
plays.  The  son,  Jack,  is  already  exhibiting  in  his  school 
career  certain  characteristics  of  his  father.  The  household 
to-day  is  permeated  with  those  kindly  memories  which  be 
speak  more  than  anything  else  the  full  force  of  Mr.  Herne's 
influence.  A  mixture  of  Irish  keenness  of  humor  with  vigor 
of  ideas  marks  the  daily  life  of  the  Herne  family,  and  during 
the  dramatist's  lifetime  it  was  just  this  distinctive  vein  which 
was  found  in  the  general  atmosphere  around  him. 

There  are  some  men  born  to  see  clearly,  to  be  zealous 
after  the  vital  principles  of  life,  the  constant  truths  of  the 


106  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

ages,  —  the  interchange  of  thoughts  and  ideas  which  elevate 
in  the  effort  to  live  our  highest  and  best.  These  are  the 
thoughts  which  were  usually  upon  the  lips  of  Mr.  Herne.  He 
was  a  man  of  the  present,  drawing  from  the  moment  what 
was  truest  from  his  standpoint.  He  loved  the  theatre,  but 
he  was  always  careful,  even  in  the  midst  of  his  stage  direc 
tions,  to  call  attention  to  those  realistic  bits  of  acting  which 
one  identifies  with  life  rather  than  with  the  simulation  of 
life. 

He  took  his  art  seriously;1  he  recognized  in  it  a  social  force 
and  a  civilizing  factor.  He  believed  that  truth  in  art  was 
as  much  within  the  grasp  of  the  stage  as  of  the  pulpit,  that 
the  theatre  was  as  much  to  be  upheld  in  the  light  of  a  temple 
for  the  work  of  the  dramatist,  as  a  museum  was  to  be  con 
sidered  a  civilizing  factor  in  its  capacity  as  temple  for  the 
art  of  the  painter.  The  theatre  to  him  was  a  place  for  the 
upholding  of  good.  He  once  said:  "We  must  not  condemn 
an  art  or  an  institution  because  a  corrupt  civilization  has 
affected  it."  He  further  said  that  "the  province  of  the 
theatre  is  not  to  preach  objectively,  but  to  teach  subjectively." 
He  recognized  that  an  art  was  vicious  only  because  of  the 
existence  of  lovers  of  vicious  art.  He  was  broad  in  his  ideas; 
his  voice  was  always  heard  in  the  cause  of  liberty  —  whether 
political  or  artistic.  He  was  to  a  certain  extent  an  individu 
alist,  recognizing  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  us;  yet 
according  to  his  own  words:  "No  individual  can  emanci 
pate  the  race;  he  cannot  even  emancipate  his  own  calling. 
The  race  must  be  taught  to  emancipate  itself. " 

We  do  not  find  Mr.  Herne  afraid  to  state  his  own  position, 
to  formulate  his  own  belief.  What  was  he  spiritually  but 
a  firm  upholder  of  the  force  of  deed,  over  and  above  creed? 
As  though  it  were  his  own  declaration  of  faith,  he  wrote: 

1  Mr.  Herne  was  one  of  the  first  actors  to  make  a  stand  against 
the  binding  influence  of  the  Theatrical  Syndicate. 


JAMES  A.   HERNE  107 

"  I  believe  that  every  human  being  has  a  certain  amount  of 
divinity — that  is,  of  God — within  him;  just  as  much  of  God 
as  he  is  capable  of  holding.  And  he  gives  out  just  as  much  of 
that  divinity  as  he  is  capable  of  expressing.  And  I  believe 
that  if  he  were  not  bound  down  by  unjust  social  laws,  that 
if  he  were  free,  the  divinity  would  grow  and  develop  and  prop 
agate  its  specie.  In  other  words,  I  believe  that  when  we 
free  men,  when  we  free  labor,  we  will  free  art,  we  will  free 
the  Church,  and  elevate  the  theatre,  and  not  until  then. " 

This  conviction,  this  recognition  of  the  spiritual  in  the 
material,  this  connection  of  the  facts  of  life  with  the  unknown 
forces  in  the  world,  were  not  confined  to  theoretical  discus 
sions.  Mr.  Herne's  political  convictions  were  likewise 
founded  upon  convictions  within  himself.  During  the 
Henry  George  campaign,  when  he  took  the  stump  in  the 
cause  of  single  tax,  we  find  him  connecting  art  with  the  civic 
life  of  the  people,  we  find  him  realizing,  as  only  a  man  can 
who  recognizes  that  art  is  an  expression  of  life,  that  the  pro 
ducers  and  the  non-producers  of  the  world  may  be  regarded 
from  the  standpoint  of  dealing  in  spirit  as  well  as  of  dealing 
in  wheat  and  hemp  and  tobacco.  Art,  whether  it  be  the 
shaping  of  a  statue,  the  writing  of  a  sonnet,  or  the  growing  of 
a  prize  ear  of  corn,  has  a  common  point  of  contact.  And 
so  again  we  hear  him  saying :  "  The  pen,  the  easel,  the  chisel, 
the  harp,  the  sock  and  buskin,  are  in  reality  tools  of  labor; 
and  the  men  who  wield  them  are  laborers,  and  their  interests 
are  swayed  by  the  welfare  and  prosperity  of  those  who  till 
the  soil,  shear  the  sheep,  and  weave  the  cloth. " 

There  are  two  characteristic  notes  throughout  Mr.  Herne's 
plays,  which  stand  as  a  fair  indication  of  the  man.  We 
find  his  love  of  the  beautiful  in  the  sense  that  truth  alone 
is  beautiful;  and  that  he  approved  of  Enneking's  belief 
that  "the  ideal  is  the  choicest  expression  of  the  real/'  is 
sufficient  measure  of  his  high  moral  outlook  upon  life.  We 


108  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

note  his  realization  of  the  human  qualities  which  underlie 
all  nature;  and  it  may  be  further  added  that  he  had  that 
pride  of  race,  that  instinct  of  the  parental  which  were  so  well 
exhibited  in  "Margaret  Fleming,"  and  in  such  comments 
as  these:  "Maternity  I  consider  the  noblest  theme  of  human 
kind;  and  I  have  no  patience  with  that  false  prudery  which 
would  keep  from  young  people  truths  they  ought  to  know 
about  in  their  purest  and  holiest  sense. " 

Mr.  Herne  is  little  known,  outside  of  a  limited  number  of 
people  in  this  country.  Now  that  he  is  dead,  it  is  hard  to 
secure  actors  who  can  fill  roles  that  he  usually  assumed 
with  such  fulness  of  interpretation.  William  Archer  has 
from  time  to  time  called  the  English  public's  attention  to 
the  plays  of  America's  most  distinctive  dramatist.  But 
unfortunately,  the  English  public  has  only  seen  the  rural 
pieces,  slightly  amended  to  accord  with  English  understand 
ing.  Even  we  in  America  have  not  been  fully  awakened  to 
what  Mr.  Herne  means  in  the  general  dramatic  and  literary 
development.  He  was  a  writer  of  direct  and  simple  prose; 
his  images  were  not  involved,  his  characters  were  not  ob 
scured  by  symbolistic  motives.  In  his  narrative,  in  his 
descriptions  —  when  he  was  at  his  best,  one  is  reminded  of 
the  vigorous  prose  of  Lincoln;  a  direct  speech  based  not  on 
any  effort  for  effect,  but  prompted  by  desire  to  say  something, 
or  to  tell  something  in  the  clearest  manner  possible.  And 
in  closing,  it  were  well  to  quote  one  paragraph  from  a  speech 
of  Mr.  Herne's,  which  stands  out  above  all  others  because 
of  the  fact  that  it  represents  the  simplicity,  the  depth,  and 
the  whole-souled  sincerity  of  the  man.  Moreover,  it  stands 
as  a  beautiful  bit  of  prose.  The  quotation  relates  to  his 
turning  from  the  writing  of  "Margaret  Fleming"  to  a  con 
sideration  of  "The  Hawthornes"  —  which  later  became 
"Shore  Acres": 

"  Mrs.  Herne  had  gone  with  two  of  our  daughters  to  spend 


JAMES  A.   HERNE  109 

a  few  weeks  of  the  summer  at  Lemoyne,  on  Frenchman's 
Bay,  in  Maine,  and  insisted  that  I  should  come  there  and 
work  on  the  play,  and  get  the  benefit  of  true  color  and  Maine 
atmosphere;  and  I  went.  What  an  exalted  idea  of  God  one 
gets,  down  in  that  old  Pine  State.  One  must  recognize  the 
sublimity  which  constantly  manifests  itself  there.  It  is 
worth  something  to  live  for  two  whole  months  on  French 
man's  Bay,  that  beautiful  inconstant  bay,  one  minute  white 
with  rage,  the  next  all  smiles  and  gently  lapping  the  foot 
hills  of  old  Mount  Desert;  with  the  purple  mist  on  the  Blue 
Hills  in  the  distance  on  the  one  hand,  the  Schoodic  range  on 
the  other;  the  perfume  of  the  pine  trees  in  every  breath 
you  inhale,  the  roar  of  the  ocean  eight  miles  away,  and  the 
bluest  of  blue  skies  overarching  all.  In  such  a  spot  as  that 
a  man  must  realize,  if  he  has  never  realized  it  before,  that 
he  and  this  planet  are  one,  and  part  of  the  universal  whole. " 

NOTE 

None  of  Mr.  Herne's  plays  have  been  published.    The  only  copies 
extant  of  " Margaret  Fleming"  and  "The  Rev.  Griffith  Davenport" 
were  burned  in  a  fire  that  totally  destroyed  "Herne  Oaks,"  Dec.  11, 
1909.    The  following  references  will  be  of  use  to  the  student: 
"Mr.  and  Mrs.  Herne."     Hamlin  Garland.     Arena,  October,  1891, 

pp.  543-60. 
"Old  Stock  Days  in  the  Theatre."    James  A.  Herne.    Arena,  6:401, 

September,  1892. 
"On  a  Barn  Roof."    Julie  Adrienne  Herne.  Arena,  December,  1893, 

pp.  131-33. 

"Mask  or  Mirror."     B.  O.  Flower.     Arena,  8:304,  1893. 
"Truth  for  Truth's  Sake  in  Drama."    James  A.  Herne.   Arena,  17: 

361-70,  Feb.,  1897.     [This  was  used  as  a  lecture  before  the 

Home  Congress  at  Cotillion  Hall,  Boston,  Oct.  27,  1896.    On 

Jan.  31,  1897,  Mr.  Herne  appeared  in  the  pulpit  of  the  First 

Congregational  Church,  Kansas  City,  and  delivered  a  lecture 

on  "The  Theatre  as  It  Is."] 
"James  A.  Herne:  Actor,  Dramatist,  and  Man."     An  appreciation 

by  Hamlin  Garland,  J.  J.  Enneking,  and  B.  O.  Flower.   Arena, 

26:282-92,  September,  1901. 


110  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

"James  A.  Herne  in  Griffith  Davenport."    Marco  Tiempo     Arena 

22:375,   Sept.  1899. 
"Rev.  Griffith  Davenport."     J.  Corbin,  Harp.  Wk.,  43:139,  213- 

John  D.  Barry,  Lit.  W.,  Bost.,  30:57;  Howells,  Literature   4- 

265-66. 
"  Margaret  Fleming."     Howells.     Harp.  Mag.,  Editor's  Study  83" 

478,  August,  1891. 
"Herne  and  his  New  Play,  'Sag  Harbor'."     F.  Wayne.  Nad  Mao 

Bost.,  11:393. 
"The  American  Stage."     Third  Article.  William  Archer.  Pall  Mall 

Magazine,  20:23-37. 
"Players  of  the  Present."     John  Bouve'  Clapp  and  Edwin  Francis 

Edgett.    Dunlap  Soc.,  pt.  1,  1899,  p.  148. 
"The  Stage  in  America."     Norman  Hapgood.    Macmillan.    Chap 

III,  "Our  Two  Ablest  Dramatists." 
"Famous  Actors  of  To-day  in  America."     Lewis  C.  Strane.    Page 

1900.    Chap.  II,  "James  A.  Herne." 


CHAPTER  VII 

DAVID  BELASCO  AND  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE 
SWITCHBOARD 

THE  story  is  told  of  an  artist  who,  in  the  cramped  quarters 
of  his  room,  was  wont  to  do  the  most  exquisite  pictures, 
marked  by  finesse  and  delicacy;  but  no  sooner  had  he  ac 
cumulated  enough  to  afford  a  larger  studio  than  the  deft 
ness  of  his  art  deserted  him.  It  is  one  of  the  unexplainable 
points  about  all  professions  that  there  is  a  limit  to  expression; 
that  there  is  a  line  where  effect  has  its  greatest  scope,  beyond 
which  the  appeal  goes  to  waste.  The  story  points  a  dramatic 
moral.  For  Dion  Boucicault,  in  the  course  of  his  vast  ex 
perience  as  playwright,  actor  and  manager,  discovered  that 
beyond  a  certain  number,  it  was  difficult  to  fuse  the  minds 
of  an  audience;  to  grip  their  attention  and  to  hold  it. 

Such  is  the  snag  against  which  the  stockholders  of  the  New 
Theatre  in  New  York  first  struck.  They  wished  to  build  an 
art  playhouse  of  certain  proportions,  with  a  stage  far  exceed 
ing  in  amplitude  the  proscenium  width  of  any  ordinary 
theatre,  and  suitable  for  light  opera,  spectacular  and  draw 
ing-room  drama.  This  is  well-nigh  impossible;  for,  to  illus 
trate  the  point  in  exaggeration,  it  would  be  artistic  suicide 
to  spread  the  boxed-in  delicacy  of  Pinero's  "Trelawny  of 
the  *  Wells J "  over  an  area  of  the  Hippodrome  stage. 

And  so,  the  art  of  the  drama  is  the  art  of  all  arts,  where 
proportion,  perspective  and  color  accumulate  for  a  given 
effect.  No  one  has  studied  this  fact  to  greater  purpose  than 


112  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

David  Belasco,  in  whom  the  instinct  of  the  painter  before  his 
canvas  is  the  dominant  characteristic,  —  an  instinct  which 
must  assuredly  prompt  the  mechanism  of  any  art  theatre  we 
may  ever  hope  to  have.  When  the  story  of  scenic  realism  is 
told,  he  will  occupy  a  distinctive  position.  Such  a  survey 
will  narrate  how  Mrs.  John  Drew,  once  playing  in  "  London 
Assurance,"  created  a  sensation  by  having  a  real  carpet  and 
mirror  among  the  properties  for  one  act.  Not  only  in  this,  but 
in  all  of  Boucicault's  productions,  some  marvel  of  stage 
mechanism  indicated  to  what  extent  the  scenic  art  could  be 
carried;  and  David  Belasco  has  continued  the  tradition. 

In  our  invariable  effort  to  estimate  a  man,  even  though 
what  he  next  does  may  upset  our  theories,  there  are  two 
phases  to  be  considered,  one  of  which  includes  the  other. 
Our  view  depends  primarily  on  what  he  has  done;  it  is  tem 
pered  by  the  direct  influence  which  has  been  brought  to 
bear  upon  him  by  others.  No  matter  what  claims  to  origin 
ality  an  artist  may  have,  no  matter  how  strong  the  impress 
of  his  personality,  those  subtle  workings  of  environment  and 
of  unconscious  imitation  are  perforce  obliged  to  develop 
within  the  man  a  certain  inclination,  a  certain  leaning,  which 
will  shape  his  angle  of  vision.  To  say  that  Mr.  Belasco  was 
for  a  time  private  secretary  to  Boucicault;  to  understand 
that  he  acknowledges  the  influence  upon  him  of  such  pieces 
as  "The  Robbers,"  "Pizarro,"  and  "Fazio"  ;  to  follow  the 
status  of  the  theater  when  he  first  reached  New  York  in  1882 
—  a  status  measured  by  the  success  of  such  French  melo 
dramas  as  "The  Two  Orphans,"  "The  Celebrated  Case," 
and  "Rose  Michel"  —  these  factors  will,  if  examined  in 
extenso,  explain  something  about  Mr.  Belasco's  impetus  as  a 
playwright. 

The  man  behind  his  ascetic  dress  is  a  combination  of  con 
flicting  elements.  It  is  easy  to  say  this  of  anyone;  but  in 
the  case  of  Mr.  Belasco,  facts  and  conditions  make  it  evident. 


DAVID  BELASCO 


DAVID  BELASCO  113 

His  manner  betrays  the  artistic  temperament;  his  steady 
look  has  two  qualities,  one  which  explains  how  he  reaches 
the  estimate  of  an  actor's  limitations,  and  the  other  in  what 
manner  he  has  withstood  the  enmity  of  the  Theatrical  Trust. 
It  is  not  always  essential  for  a  dramatist  to  penetrate  deeply 
into  life,  but  one  cannot  deny  that  Mr.  Belasco 's  glance  has 
taken  the  details  in  thoroughly.  He  has  had  the  experience 
which  should  come  to  all  writers  of  plays;  he  has  been  thrown 
against  the  strong  contrasts  of  living  which  are  usually  to 
be  found  in  a  mining  camp;  he  has  lurked  in  the  highways 
and  byways  of  existence,  unconsciously  gathering  those  ele 
mental  stuffs  which  are  the  essential  ingredients  in  all  pas 
sion.  These  he  has  in  most  cases  toned  down,  but  the  brutal 
elements  in  "Du  Barry"  and  in  "Adrea"  indicate  to  what 
uses  experience  of  this  kind  is  brought. 

There  is  the  ascetic  streak  in  David  Belasco,  colored  by  a 
pronounced  spiritual  and  contrasting  sentimental  verve; 
there  is  the  tinge  of  morbidity  which  is  always  attendant 
upon  a  clinical  analysis  of  psychological  phenomena.  None 
but  Mr.  Belasco  himself  can  realize  the  satisfaction  he  gained 
many  years  ago  through  watching  the  heart  of  a  woman  as 
it  lay  upon  a  plate  before  him.  Yet  such  was  the  actual 
occurrence,  all  the  while  his  imagination  playing  havoc  with 
the  physical  object.  In  like  manner  has  the  manager  studied 
the  effects  of  poisons  upon  the  body,  reasoning  out  the 
physical  contortions  as  they  differed  under  varying  condi 
tions.  This  preparation  for  the  drama  is  not  essential  to 
all  playwrights;  it  suited  Mr.  Belasco's  temperament  that 
he  seek  impressions  in  this  manner. 

Yet  side  by  side  with  this  curiosity  that  digs  into  the 
physical  causes  and  effects,  there  is  the  other  phase  character 
istic  of  the  ascetic  nature  —  the  love  of  solitude.  For  five 
years,  during  the  formative  period  of  his  life,  Mr.  Belasco 
was  under  the  guidance  of  the  priesthood  at  Vancouver. 


114  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

The  eight-year-old  boy  was  impressionable,  and  Father 
McGuire,  if  he  could  not  educate  his  tastes  away  from  the 
stage,  at  least  set  a  mark  of  ecclesiasticism  upon  his  dress, 
to  which  he  has  always  adhered.  In  contrast  with  the  little 
fellow,  asleep  in  his  cheerless  cell  of  the  monastery,  may  be 
set  the  picture  of  the  nervous  playwright  as  he  is  to-day, 
closeted  in  his  secret  studio  with  his  books  and  curios,  totally 
alone  in  a  roaring  city,  since  none  know  where  that  workshop 
may  be,  except  a  few  of  his  essential  staff. 

Here  it  is  that  he  plans  in  secret,  the  slightest  suggestions 
bringing  meaning  to  him;  he  is  a  lover  of  the  twilight;  in 
the  thunder  and  the  lightning  are  hidden  possible  electrical 
impressions.  His  is  the  quick  grasp  of  the  picturesque,  the 
striking,  the  impressionable.  In  every  respect  does  he 
practice  the  technique  of  the  painter  before  his  canvas. 

Mr.  Belasco  is  the  second  present-day  dramatist  of  note 
to  draw  upon  Iberian  traits,  for  his  family,  like  the  Pineros, 
were  of  ancient  Portuguese  extraction,  and  were  forced  to 
flee  to  England  before  the  wrath  of  the  Moors.  But,  while 
the  Pineros  remained  as  British  subjects,  the  Belascos  of 
David's  immediate  stock  proceeded  still  further  to  Victoria 
(in  Vancouver),  where  the  father  of  the  present  playwright 
became  rich  and  was  elected  Mayor,  then  became  poor  again 
and  made  another  move  to  San  Francisco,  drawn  there  by 
optimistic  accounts  which  marked  the  gold  fever  of  1849.1 

In  that  city  it  was  that  the  present  holder  of  the  name  was 
born  on  July  25,  1859.  There  is  little  to  record  of  these 
early  days.  It  must  have  been  before  his  departure  to  Van 
couver  with  Father  McGuire  that  he  assumed  juvenile  roles 
in  "Pizarro"  with  Charles  Kean;  in  "Metamora"  with 
Edwin  Forrest;  in  "East  Lynne"  with  Julia  Dean.  Before 
then,  also,  he  received  some  slight  school  training,  as  well  as 

1  In  crossing  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  his  mother  gained  distinc 
tion  as  the  first  woman  traveler  to  do  so. 


DAVID  BELASCO  115 

gained  some  reputation  as  a  reciter  of  a  piece  called  "The 
Madman. " 

When  he  returned  from  his  priest  friends,  he  was  thirteen 
and  not  yet  quite  through  his  education,  for  he  was  placed 
at  Lincoln  College,  from  which  he  was  graduated  in  1875. 
When  he  was  scarcely  fourteen,  he  could  boast  authorship 
of  "Jim  Black;  or,  The  Regulator's  Revenge."  All  through 
these  years  forces  in  him  and  around  him  were  pointing  to 
ward  the  stage.  It  does  not  take  much  to  fan  a  liking  into 
a  passion,  and  it  is  recorded  how,  having  once  gone  to  see 
"  Hamlet, "  the  boy  had  rushed  home  to  the  garret  and  there 
played  through  the  drama,  even  essaying,  at  this  early  age, 
to  rewrite  the  dialogue  from  memory! 

Then  followed  the  months  of  a  struggling  actor.  He 
began  by  supporting  Mary  Welles  in  "The  Lion  of  Nu 
bia,"  and  soon,  throwing  his  whole  future  into  the  dramatic 
scales,  Mr.  Belasco  experienced  the  vicissitudes  of  the  ex 
hibitor  of  Egyptian  mysteries,  of  the  melodramatic  "super," 
even  for  a  while  playing  Hamlet  and  Richard  III  himself 
in  the  mountain  towns  and  backwoods  settlements  of  the 
West.  He  was  fortunate,  during  this  period,  in  being  brought 
into  direct  contact  with  the  golden  era  of  American  acting. 
Edwin  Booth,  John  McCullough,  E.  A.  Sothern,  William 
Florence,  Edwin  Adams  and  Adelaide  Nielson  were  the 
stars  in  the  San  Francisco  of  those  days.  He  even  joined 
So  them's  "Dundreary"  company,  appearing  as  the  valet. 

Thereafter  began  the  training  of  David  Belasco  as  assis 
tant  stage  manager  of  a  theatre  in  Virginia  City,  where  the 
stock  company  was  prepared  for  any  emergency,  from  farce 
to  tragedy,  and  where  Belasco  was  supposed,  much  as  Ibsen 
had  been  expected  at  Bergen,  to  fit  dramas  for  production. 
He  did  more  than  this,  since  he  was  required  to  act  as  well  as 
to  manage.  While  serving  in  this  capacity,  Dion  Boucicault 
and  his  company  arrived  to  fill  an  engagement.  The  Irish 


116  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

wizard,  in  the  writing  of  plays,  could  juggle  with  three  plots 
at  a  time;  he  had,  with  Laura  Keene,  produced  a  play  within 
an  abnormally  short  period  by  rehearsing  one  act  while  in 
the  midst  of  writing  another.  He  was  alert  to  activity  of 
all  kinds,  and  he  found  energy  to  his  liking  in  the  assistant 
stage  manager. 

When  he  left  Virginia  City,  Boucicault  carried  Belasco 
with  him  as  private  secretary,  and  to  his  young  associate 
"Led  Astray"  was  dictated,  besides  the  scenes  for  many 
other  productions.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  effectiveness 
which  marked  the  Boucicault  drama  would  escape  the  future 
wizard  of  American  stage-craft.  "  Arrah-na-Pogue,"  when 
it  reached  San  Francisco,  became  the  one  strong  outside 
influence  to  affect  the  theatrical  conditions  on  the  Pacific 
slope.  The  secretary  might  have  gone  to  New  York  soon 
after  had  his  mother  not  intervened;  and  it  was  just  as 
well,  since  the  experience  which  he  was  now  to  gain  as  man 
ager  and  stock  dramatist  of  the  Baldwin  Theatre  matured 
his  managerial  powers  and  at  the  same  time  brought  him 
into  association  with  James  A.  Herne,  who,  for  a  while,  was 
at  the  same  theatre.  The  play-goer  of  the  present  gener 
ation  needs  must  weigh  the  value  of  such  repertoires  as  old- 
time  actors  used  to  carry  —  dramas  that  called  for  the 
varying  shades  of  classic  comedies,  and  the  historical  scope 
of  different  styled  tragedies.  But  though  there  was  a  con 
ventional  way  of  regulating  all  stock  companies,  Belasco, 
even  at  that  early  date,  began  to  introduce  original  methods, 
and  Charles  Thome,  Frank  Mayo  and  Edwin  Adams  — 
all  men  of  longer  experience  —  soon  came  to  regard  his  ad 
vice  as  authoritative. 

Belasco  was  the  youngest  manager  along  the  Pacific  slope. 
The  theatre  was  run  on  a  somewhat  crude,  though  very 
artistic,  scale.  Audiences  of  all  classes  had  to  be  catered 
to,  and  a  motley,  picturesque  crowd  gathered  together  on 


Photo,   by  Sanity 


A.  M.  PALMER 


DAVID  BELASCO  117 

Saturdays  —  the  melodrama  evenings  —  to  thrill  over  "  The 
Idiot  of  the  Mountains  "  and  "The  Robber  of  the  Pyrenees." 
Thus  the  years  passed  at  the  Baldwin  Theatre,  the  Grand 
Opera  House  and  the  Metropolitan.  When  finally  Belasco 
decided,  in  1882,  to  go  to  New  York,  his  confidence  in  him 
self  was  backed  by  an  enviable  experience.  No  schooling 
is  better  for  a  playwright  than  just  this  intimate  contact 
which  Mr.  Belasco  had  had  with  the  hundreds  of  plays  that 
came  under  his  supervision.  Already  his  hand  had  been 
turned  to  dramatizations,  adaptations  and  even  original 
work. 

But  when  the  Mallorys  engaged  him  as  stage  director 
and  stock  dramatist  of  the  Madison  Square  Theatre,  they 
probably  placed  more  store  by  his  general  usefulness  as  a 
producer,  as  a  manipulator  of  other  people's  crude  material, 
than  as  an  author  of  any  formidable  proportions. 

New  York  was  then  going  through  its  final  decade  of 
old-time  managerial  policies;  the  Theatrical  Trust  was  still 
to  come;  the  American  playwright,  in  the  face  of  foreign 
importations,  was  finding  it  difficult  to  gain  recognition; 
Mr.  Howard  was  battling  hard  and  receiving  rough  handling 
by  the  critics  for  his  "  Saratoga."  A.  M.  Palmer  was  meet 
ing  success  with  French  melodramas;  Wallack,  atune  to 
English  melodrama,  was  soon  listening  to  Belasco's  tempting 
offer  of  "La  Belle  Russe";  Daly,  at  the  most  disastrous 
period  of  his  career,  was  tottering  through  an  opera  craze. 
The  latter  manager  had  begun  with  marked  success;  such 
pieces  as  "Under  the  Gas  Light,"  "Article  47"  (for  Clara 
Morris)  and  "Pique"  (for  Fanny  Davenport)  had  obtained 
instant  favor.  He  had  been  drawing  from  France,  when  he 
adapted  "Frou-Frou"  for  Agnes  Ethel,  and  he  had  turned 
to  the  German  of  Mosenthal  for  "  Leah,  the  Forsaken."  It 
was  after  this  that  he  found  a  mine  in  the  German  farce. 
,  In  the  midst  of  all  this  conglomerate  emotional  material, 


118  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Mr.  Belasco  found  the  Madison  Square  Theatre  devoted 
to  the  quiet  domestic  play,  so  quiet  that  it  had  drawn  down 
upon  it  the  derisive  title  of  "milk  and  water"  drama.  Natu 
rally  the  distorted  methods  of  acting  would  not  suit  this 
style  of  play.  Those  were  the  days  of  over-emphasis,  big 
periods,  measured  intervals,  and  rounded  gesture.  Mr. 
Belasco  proceeded  to  sacrifice  all  of  this  bombast,  much  to 
the  surprise  and  doubt  of  his  co-workers.  The  comedian 
no  longer  was  allowed  to  wait  for  a  laugh;  it  had  either  to 
come  through  the  pure  unctiousness  of  the  character-acting, 
or  not  at  all.  Such  a  regime  as  the  young  manager  instituted 
soon  won  the  confidence  of  everyone. 

The  little  playhouse  on  Twenty-fourth  Street  was  in  the 
hey-day  of  its  existence;  A.  M.  Palmer  soon  became  inter 
ested  in  its  success;  the  stock  company  which  bore  its  name 
was  winning  public  favor;  a  school  of  acting  was  to  involve 
the  labors  of  Henry  C.  De  Mille  and  Boucicault,  who  turned 
to  it,  broken  in  health  and  sorely  disturbed  in  mind.  Mr. 
De  Mille  was  play-reader  for  the  theatre,  which  meant,  for 
example,  that  in  three  months  he  examined  two  hundred 
manuscripts  submitted  by  would-be  American  playwrights! 

When,  however,  a  drama  was  accepted,  it  was  soon  turned 
over  to  Mr.  Belasco  for  final  shaping.  This  is  what  happened 
to  Mr.  Howard's  "The  Young  Mrs.  Winthrop";  suggested 
changes  were  made  on  all  sides,  and  the  final  re-casting  was 
accomplished  with  Belasco's  assistance.  The  result  was 
that  by  the  production  Mr.  Howard  gained  warm  com 
mendation  from  the  press,  and  Mr.  Belasco  immediately 
found  himself  in  possession  of  considerable  prestige. 

What  followed,  up  to  the  time  that  the  latter  joined  forces 
with  Daniel  Frohman  at  the  Lyceum,  in  1885,1  constitutes  the 
history  of  the  New  York  theatre  rather  than  the  develop- 

1  See  "Memories  of  a  Manager."    Daniel  Frohman.    1911. 


DAVID  BELASCO  119 

ment  of  the  American  dramatist.  It  is  only  necessary  to 
say  that  under  such  conditions,  and  together  with  Mr. 
Belasco's  temperament,  there  grew  into  dominant  propor 
tions  a  managerial  grasp,  an  analytical  keenness  for  large 
effect,  a  marvelous  readiness  to  assimilate  according  to  his 
needs,  an  instinctive  and  unerring  eye  for  the  romantic. 

Up  to  this  time  little  of  his  actual  stage  writing  had  brought 
him  any  unusual  distinction.  Between  his  arrival  in  the 
East  and  his  collaborating  with  De  Mille,  "La  Belle  Russe" 
(Wallack's,  1882),  " The  Stranglers  of  Paris"  (1883),  "Hearts 
of  Oak"  (with  Mr.  Herne)  (1884) f,1  and  "May  Blossom" 
(1884)2  had  met  with  success.  But  there  were  also  to  his 
credit  titles  which  are  not  even  familiar  in  name  to  the 
present  generation  of  threatre-goers.  In  this  category  are 
included  "Valerie,"  "Miss  Helyett,"  "Pawn  Ticket  210,"t 
"The  Moonlight  Marriage,"  "The  Doll  Master,"  "A  Christ 
mas  Night,"  "  Within  an  Inch  of  His  Life,"  "  The  Lone  Pine," 
"American  Born,"  "Not  Guilty,"  "The  Haunted  House," 
"Cherry  and  Fair  Star,"  "Sylvia's  Loves,"  "Paul  Arniff," 
"The  Curse  of  Cain,"  "The  Millionaire's  Daughter,"  "The 
Ace  of  Spades"  and  "The  Roll  of  the  Drum."  One  is  not 
far  wrong  in  inferring  that,  however  effective  these  may  have 
been,  there  was  more  melodramatic  situation  in  them  than 
definite  intent,  nor  did  they  have  sufficient  distinctiveness 
in  themselves  to  survive  the  immediate  atmosphere  and 
demand  which  encouraged  them.  Had  it  not  been  that  Mr. 
Belasco's  art  instinct  as  a  constructive  manager  was  upper 
most  at  the  time,  he  might  have  been  contributing  at  this 
moment  to  the  broad  melodrama  which  thrives  on  the 
morbid,  however  it  may  seek  to  glorify  virtue.  But  so 

1  Plays  marked  thus  (f)  indicate  collaboration. 

a  This  is  the  only  one  of  Mr.  Belasco's  plays  that  has  so  far  been 
published.  It  is  included  in  the  French  series.  "The  Grand  Army 
Man"  has  been  "novelized"  by  Harvey  J.  O'Higgins. 


120  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

characteristic  did  this  art  side  become,  that  one  cannot 
separate  the  manager  from  the  author. 

By  the  deftness  of  stage  manipulation  which  had  made 
him  so  sought  after  that  the  Mallorys  on  occasions  were 
forced  to  lend  him  to  others,  public  attention  was  now  cen 
tred  upon  the  Lyceum.  The  association  of  Mr.  De  Mille 
with  Mr.  Belasco  resulted  in  four  plays,  all  marked  with  certain 
conventions  that  characterize  Mr.  Howard  at  his  best  — 
stock  situations  that  balance  three  sets  of  opposite  characters : 
the  ingenue  roles,  the  romantic  hero  and  heroine,  and  the 
middle-aged  couple  upon  whom  comedy,  bordering  nigh 
on  to  farce,  is  unerringly  practiced.  We  see  this  in  "The 
Charity  Ball"  (1889),  as  well  as  in  "Men  and  Women" 
(1890).  Then  there  was  "The  Wife,"  a  drama  which  in 
1887  was  brought  into  the  courts,  where  an  unsuccessful 
suit  was  tried,  with  Frances  Aymar  Mathews  as  the  plaintiff. 
But  the  greatest  coup  which  the  two  made  together  was  the 
preparation  of  a  role  in  "Lord  Chumley"  (1888),  for  E.  H. 
Sothern,  which  marked  the  son  with  some  of  the  excellent 
comedy  capabilities  belonging  to  his  father,  whose  "Lord 
Dundreary"  was  undoubtedly  the  source  of  inspiration. 
It  must  be  said  that  the  collaborators  succeeded  in  develop 
ing  a  certain  human  sympathy  for  the  fop  which  was  not 
unlike  the  loveableness  so  pronounced  in  the  earlier  role.1 

Between  1890  and  1895,  which  last  date  marks  the  inception 
of  the  Theatrical  Syndicate,  perhaps  one  might  say  until 
after  "Zaza"  (1899)  and  "Naughty  Anthony"  (1900), 
which  ended  his  association  with  any  members  of  the  organ 
ized  managerial  system,  Mr.  Belasco  must  be  regarded  only 
as  a  successful  stage  manager  and  a  skilful  playwright  and 
adapter.  "The  Girl  I  Left  Behind  Me"  (1893),  written 

1  In  1889,  Mr.  Belasco  and  Mr.  Franklin  Sargent  produced  the 
"Electra"  of  Sophocles;  while  on  the  Pacific  Coast  Mr.  Belasco 
mounted  a  version  of  the  Passion  Play. 


DAVID  BELASCO  121 

in  conjunction  with  Franklyn  Fyles,  was  one  of  the  initial 
successes  of  the  Empire  Theatre;  "The  Heart  of  Maryland" 
(1895)  was  one  of  the  first  of  his  dramas  stamped  by  a  large 
piece  of  stage  technique,  such  as  the  swinging  bell,  with  the 
heroine  holding  to  the  clapper;  "Zaza"  (1899)1  indicates 
the  deftness  with  which  his  translation  quite  eclipsed  the 
real  author  of  the  French  original,  and  his  training  of  Mrs. 
Carter  in  the  title  role  exemplifies  the  wonderful  illumina 
tive  power  with  which  he  can,  in  his  instruction,  carry  an 
actress  to  the  heart  of  a  character  and  bring  out,  as  a 
photographer  does  on  a  negative,  those  fine  lines  which  are 
never  evident  in  the  first  moments.  From  this  time  on, 
however,  his  progress  has  been  marked  by  two  dominant 
notes;  he  has  fought  against  odds,  and  has,  by  his  atti 
tude,  brought  public  attention  to  bear  upon  both  sides  of 
the  Trust  problem;  he  has,  likewise,  incited  public  curiosity 
through  the  lavishness  of  his  stagecraft,  so  thoroughly  tak 
ing  hold  of  popular  appeal  as  well-nigh  to  hypnotize  by 
what  is  peculiarly,  yet  legitimately,  termed  "the  Belasco 
atmosphere." 

There  are  always  two  sides  to  a  given  question,  and  it 
is  never  wise  to  discuss  one  without  laying  as  much  emphasis 
upon  the  other.  Suffice  it  to  say  at  the  present  moment, 
whatever  move  Mr.  Belasco  has  made  against  the  Trust  has 
been  planned  quite  as  much  in  the  cause  of  independent 
art  as  to  further  his  personal  interests.  He  has  never  once 
gainsaid  the  advantage  of  systematizing  theatrical  finance 
so  as  to  bring  the  money  question  down  to  a  thorough  bank 
ing  basis ;  but  he  has  questioned  the  ethical  side  of  the  book 
ing  problem.  This  places  in  control  of  a  few  hands  the 
portioning  of  time  engagements  along  theatrical  circuits 

1  Other  plays  during  this  time  were  "The  Senator's  Wife"  (1892), 
and  "The  Younger  Son"  (1893). 


122  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

and  involves  the  playhouses  stretched,  chain-like,  across  the 
continent. 

It  is  a  matter  of  stage  history  how  certain  actors  made 
bold  to  stand  against  the  dictatorship  of  the  Trust,  and 
how,  one  by  one,  they  succumbed.1  Not  so  Mr.  Belasco, 
and  because,  in  his  theatre  he  was  determined  to  practice 
his  own  policy,  and  not  be  dictated  to,  he  soon  realized 
that  along  that  chain  of  theatres  he  was  irretrievably  de 
barred;  which  meant  that  he  must  either  play  in  halls  or 
be  kept  out  of  certain  towns.  This  necessitated  his  planning 
for  his  own  theatres,  in  New  York,  in  Washington,  in 
Philadelphia,  and  in  Boston.  One  by  one  the  difficulties 
constituting  his  exile  are  being  overcome.  But  to  add  to 
the  condition  of  theatrical  monopoly,  Mr.  Belasco  has  had, 
likewise,  to  face  a  personal  antagonism,  which  is  hardly  a 
matter  for  theatre  discussion,  however  much  it  may  have 
been  enlarged  because  of  Mr.  Belasco's  theatre  success. 

Since  the  opening  of  his  Belasco  playhouse  in  New  York, 
the  manager  has  presented  a  long  list  of  remarkable  successes 
from  the  standpoint  of  scenic  artistry  and  drawing  qualities. 
He  has  engaged  the  efforts  of  John  Luther  Long,  of  Charles 
Klein,  of  Richard  Walton  Tully,  and  of  the  Misses  Phelps 
and  Short  as  collaborators;  and  under  his  undoubted  genius 
as  a  painstaking  instructor  there  have  come  to  the  fore  such 
names  as  Mrs.  Carter,  Miss  Bates,  Mr.  Warfield,  Mr.  Frank 
Keenan,  Miss  Starr,  Miss  Walker  and  Miss  O  'Neil.  Further 
more,  as  material  for  his  success,  he  has  depended  upon 
"Madame  Butterfly "f  (1900  —  Long),  "  Du  Barry"  (1900), 
"The  Darling  of  the  Gods"f  (1902  — Long),  "Sweet  Kitty 

1  For  a  few  articles  on  the  Syndicate,  see:  International,  1 : 99-122, 
Jan.,  1900,  Norman  Hapgood;  Fortn.  Rev.,  79:1010-1016,  June,  1903, 
Charles  Hawtrey;  Leslie's  Monthly,  Oct.,  1904,  581-592;  Nov.,  1904, 
31-42;  Dec.,  1904,  202-210;  Jan.,  1905,  331-334;  Cosmopolitan,  38: 
193-201,  Dec.,  1904. 


DAVID  BELASCO  123 

Bellairs  "  (1903  —  dramatization),  "  Adrea"  f  (1905  — 
Long),  "  The  Girl  of  the  Golden  West"  (1905),1  "  The  Rose  of 
the  Rancho"f  (1906  —  Tully),  "The  Grand  Army  Man" f 
(1907 — Phelps  —  Short).  To  this  list  may  be  added  his 
assistance,  as  manager  in  the  success  of  "The  Auctioneer" 
and  "The  Music  Master,"  by  Charles  Klein,  and  of  "The 
Warrens  of  Virginia,"  by  William  C.  De  Mille,  the  son  of  his 
old  collaborator.2 

What  are  the  elements  that  mark  Mr.  Belasco,  or  it  would 
be  more  in  order  to  say  on  what  special  elements  does  Mr. 
Belasco  place  the  stamp  of  his  own  temperament  and  genius? 
I  have  been  fortunate  in  having  before  me  the  stage  copies 
of  his  important  dramas,  and  I  cannot  but  marvel  at  the 
strokes  which  are  made  by  his  unerring  eye,  unerring  in  the 
sense  that  his  strokes  seem  always  to  fulfil  the  special  re 
quirement  which  he  at  the  moment  needs.  The  intricate 
movement  in  the  first  act  of  "Zaza,"  the  filmy  threads  of 
broken  dialogue,  the  minute  directions  of  the  dressing-room 
scene,  where,  not  for  a  moment,  even  in  the  reading,  is  the 
imagination  left  in  doubt  as  to  the  details  of  business  —  here 
is  the  painter  in  his  most  impressionistic  manner,  flinging 
splashes  of  humanity  against  a  canvas,  splashes  which  draw 
together  the  moment  they  are  brought  in  continuous  and 
active  relation  one  with  the  other. 

"The  Darling  of  the  Gods,"  over-weighty  as  it  is  in  its 
mounting,  would  be  difficult  to  follow  in  the  manuscript, 
were  Mr.  Belasco 's  infinite  care  of  small  matters  not  con- 


1  Made  into  an  opera  by  Puccini,  and  sung  at  the  Metropolitan 
Opera  House  during  the  season  of  1910-11. 

2  Among  Mr.  Belasco 's  recent  successes  may  be  mentioned  "The 
Lily"  (1910)  by  himself,  and  "The  Concert,"  adapted  from  the  Ger 
man  by  Leo  Ditrichstein.  Walter's  "The Easiest  Way"  (1909)  created 
great  discussion  in  New  York,  but   was  debarred,  by  act  of  the 
Mayor,  from  Boston.    During  the  Spring  of   1911,  he  presented 
William  De  Mille's  "The  Woman." 


124          THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

scientiously  set  down.  Even  so,  the  demand  this  play  makes 
on  the  imagination,  in  addition  to  the  amount  of  imagi 
nation  it  shows  in  itself,  is  indication  of  the  visual  insight 
which  he  and  his  collaborator  have  brought  to  bear. 

I  do  not  'contend  that  light  plots,  and  property  plots,  and 
calcium  plots  entitle  a  man  to  the  distinction  of  playwright, 
but  the  power  to  conjure  up  the  effective  contrasts  of  high 
light  and  shadow  is  as  much  to  Mr.  Belasco's  credit  as  it 
is  to  the  artist  who  paints  upon  a  large  canvas.  The  stage 
settings,  sometimes  overrich  in  detail,  are  nevertheless 
almost  always  unfailing  in  their  atmospheric  effects.  The 
courtesan,  Du  Barry,  is  given  a  setting  which  balances  the 
savage  abandon  of  her  nature  with  the  licentious  terrorism 
of  the  period.  "  Adrea, "  barbaric  throughout,  does  not ^f ail 
to  create  a  disgust  which  is  too  strong  to  be  counteracted 
by  the  moment  of  sacrifice  in  the  end.  These  are  not  char 
acteristics  which  are  new  to  Mr.  Belasco;  they  were  evi 
dent  in  him  long  before,  even  though  they  were  not  fully 
developed.  Some  may  think  that  Sardou  was  the  influence 
behind  this,  but  the  young  dramatist  had  written  "  La  Belle 
Russe"  before  Fanny  Davenport  began  with  "Fedora" 
in  a  list  which  ended  with  "  Gismonda."  It  was  simply  the 
innate  genius  of  the  stage  manager  who  may  not  wrrite  for 
literature,  but  who,  while  he  remains  active,  is  a  constant 
source  of  pleasure. 

There  is  nothing  so  disillusionizing  as  an  empty  theatre 
in  daylight;  the  gaping  orchestra  chairs  show  the  absence 
of  a  responsive  crowd;  the  space  from  pit  to  dome,  from 
centre  stage  to  family  circle,  is  like  an  empty  shell  waiting 
for  sound  and  light.  But  if  you  possess  even  the  slightest 
sense  of  the  theatre,  the  scenery  with  its  daub  of  paint,  the 
switchboard  with  its  banks  of  levers,  the  stage  hands  in  their 
shirtsleeves,  will  represent  the  elements  of  a  great  art,  whose 
spirit  gilds  the  mechanics  of  the  play. 


DAVID  BELASCO  125 

Take  for  granted  that  the  scene  is  naught  but  a  house  of 
cards,  that  the  back-drop  on  close  view  is  no  more  nor  less 
than  a  splash  of  color,  —  behind  it  all  is  the  instinct  that 
creates  perspective  from  the  flat.  The  mechanics  of  the 
stage  have  been  brought  to  such  perfection  that  their  misuse 
instantly  reveals  the  lack  of  the  artist. 

The  [stage  is  an  organism,  a  whole  of  many  parts;  the 
idea  set  in  dialogue  and  action  must  be  clothed  in  speech, 
light,  and  scene.  This  is  the  supreme  work  of  the  stage 
manager,  —  to  draw  these  things  together  in  their  truest 
relationship. 

One  has  a  right  to  speak  of  the  psychology  of  the  switch 
board,  to  humanize  the  mechanics  of  the  theatre.  The  elec 
trician  holds  nature  in  his  hands;  he  has  thought  out  the 
elements  of  a  prairie  sun,  and  he  measures  its  intensity  by 
the  number  of  switches  in  use.  At  rehearsals  he  has  diffused 
the  scene  with  many  moonlights,  until  the  Italian  glamour 
appealed  to  his  feeling.  The  stage  has  changed  since  the 
time  Mary  Anderson's  Juliet  faced  the  headlight  of  a  loco 
motive,  held  aloft  by  a  negro  boy  as  the  inconstant  moon. 
Psychology  is  essentially  a  fluid  state,  and  the  progress  of 
electricity  has  made  it  possible  for  stage  lighting  to  be  fluid, 
to  be  subject  to  imperceptible  shades,  to  absorb  the  individ 
ual  rays  in  a  general  suffusion. 

Not  one  of  our  present-day  managers  has  so  profited  by  the 
response  of  the  electric  switchboard  to  human  psychology 
as  Mr.  Belasco;  in  his  hands  it  is  the  very  essence  of  atmos 
phere,  the  very  indicator  of  the  scene's  tone.  Whether  it 
be  the  enervating  blaze  of  sunlight  in  the  opening  act  of 
"The  Rose  of  the  Rancho,"  or  the  cold  gray  dawn  after  the 
night's  anguish  in  "Madame  Butterfly,"  the  result  repre 
sents  no  mechanical  accident.  Once,  not  so  long  ago,  effect 
used  to  be  entirely  artificial;  the  villain's  entrance  was 
heralded  by  dark,  restless  music  from  a  few  violins,  and  by  the 


126  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

roll  of  a  kettledrum.  But  to-day,  Mr.  Belasco  has  driven 
incidental  sentimentality  from  the  orchestra  by  the  depen 
dence  upon  the  switchboard. 

What  do  we  mean  by  the  psychology  of  stage  lighting? 
Simply  that  every  emotional  effect  of  large  import  results 
in  a  corresponding  direction  being  given  to  the  electrician. 
To  take  an  external  example,  suppose  the  stage  in  semi- 
darkness;  a  character  enters  with  a  lighted  candle.  One 
naturally  expects  an  increase  in  light,  but  the  intensity  must 
move  across  the  stage  with  the  movement  of  the  candle. 
It  is  here  that  the  electrician,  from  his  platform,  plays  upon 
his  switchboard.  By  a  system  of  interlocking,  and  of  dim 
ming  the  flow  of  current,  he  can  send  across  the  "foots"  a 
flare  of  lights  to  follow  the  candle  flame;  one  bulb  is  made  to 
glow  as  the  other  fades. 

Such  is  the  ease  of  gaining  an  elementary  effect,  but  the 
principle  is  the  same,  however  complicated  the  requirement. 
In  his  studio,  Mr.  Belasco  first  imagines  his  canvas;  he  then 
places  his  "light  plots"  in  the  hands  of  his  electrician  for 
fulfilment.  At  rehearsal  he  adds  to,  modifies,  rejects,  fus 
ing  the  whole  as  a  painter  does  with  his  brush.  His  stage 
directions  at  first  become  mere  skeleton  notes  of  transitory 
feeling.  His  assistant  stands  near,  pencil  in  hand,  watching 
the  restless  move  of  the  manager,  searching  among  the  lights 
for  what  he  wants.  The  switchboard  is  taxed  to  its  utter 
most,  mixing  color  to  accord  with  a  certain  quality  of  shadow 
in  Mr.  Belasco 's  mind. 

If  a  drama  is  big,  if  an  actor's  art  is  expressive,  a  story 
may  often  be  ably  suggested  by  pantomime;  its  emotional 
color,  range,  and  variation  in  the  same  way  may  be  sketched 
in  light.  Having  rehearsed  his  company  beyond  the  "letter 
perfect"  point,  Mr.  Belasco  assembles  them  for  light  effects. 
His  experiments  are  as  much  with  you  as  on  you.  Not 
only  must  the  actors  harmonize  among  themselves,  but  also 


DAVID  BELASCO  127 

with  the  lights.  To  their  own  emotional  interpretation  of  a 
role,  they  must  add  the  atmospheric  effect  of  the  stage  light. 
For  six  minutes  the  curtain  was  up  before  a  word  was  spoken 
in  "The  Rose  of  the  Rancho. "  It  was  a  somnolent  scene; 
those  who  saw  it  felt  the  drowsy  vapor  of  the  glow,  the  still 
air,  and  the  enervating  heat.  Let  us  discount  the  state 
ment  of  the  press-agent  that "  so  realistic  was  the  scene,  it 
made  the  stage  carpenters  drowsy,"  and  be  satisfied  with 
the  plausible  fact  that  the  imagination  of  the  actor  caused 
the  switchboard  to  react  upon  himself. 

Undoubtedly,  a  stage  manager  should  make  his  people 
feel  the  lights;  if  the  scene  is  cold,  the  actor  should  find  it 
easy  to  shiver  within  the  bleak,  steely  rays  devoid  of  all 
warm  color.  In  this  way  imitation  approaches  reality; 
the  actor  responds  by  absorbing  every  element,  condition,  or 
circumstance,  in  order  to  make  his  body  warm  or  cold,  as 
the  case  may  be. 

Every  electrician  is  in  possession  of  his  cue,  knows  the 
story  of  the  play,  and  is  made  to  calculate  the  emotional 
requirements  in  terms  of  his  switchboard.  He  is  no  machine, 
no  mere  feeder  of  the  stage  with  light.  The  human  tempo 
of  the  situation  pulses  in  his  veins;  he  lowers  or  raises  his 
levers  until  every  blemish  is  removed.  There  must  be  no 
blotch,  no  streaks,  for  the  lights  should  glide;  sharp  edges 
should  be  made  to  blend. 

In  that  rehearsal  for  lights,  the  manager  must  consider 
the  balance  of  white  surface  and  shadow.  A  glint  is  thrown 
on  a  ribbon,  a  bit  of  lace,  a  bare  arm  or  neck;  this  must  be 
balanced  by  the  absence  of  light  somewhere  else.  The 
switchboard  must  have  a  tempo  regulated  to  accord  with  the 
beat  of  emotion.  Not  only  that,  but  the  light  is  guided  by 
the  color  of  a  costume,  toned  to  contrast  with  other  dresses 
possibly;  even  the  hair  limits  the  intensity  of  light,  and  if 
the  features  of  an  actor  are  strong,  a  strong  current  upon  the 


128  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

face  would  only  serve  to  reveal  a  "war  map"  of  lines.  A 
white  light  brings  disillusionment  in  its  path. 

Rehearsal  is  a  matter  of  constant  shifting*  a  thousand  and 
one  directions  are  given  which  never  find  their  way  on  the 
prompter's  script  of  the  play.  "I  think  I'll  make  that  so 
and  so,"  says  the  Stage  Manager,  and  the  Carpenter  looks 
askance  at  the  Electrician,  while  the  Scene  Painter  goes 
back  to  his  pots  and  brushes,  to  try  again  some  perspective 
cliff  or  shore.  "I  not  only  want  a  moon,  but  a  Japanese 
moon,"  cried  Mr.  Belasco  during  a  rehearsal  of  "The  Darling 
of  the  Gods." 

In  the  matter  of  the  switchboard,  Mr.  Belasco  stands  in 
a  new  light.  He  is  not  the  conventional  stage  manager;  he 
is  a  lover  of  nature,  having  felt  the  close  of  day  on  the  plains, 
and  seen  the  first  streak  of  dawn  in  Italy.  He  has  been  an 
investigator  of  all  phases  of  the  physical  as  well  as  of  the 
emotional.  He  is  not  merely  satisfied  with  reaching  the  eye, 
but  he  must  strike  the  heart;  his  lights  are  always  acces 
sories;  they  are  made  to  reinforce  or  to  counteract;  they 
must  serve  a  purpose,  otherwise  be  discarded.  At  times  he 
places  too  much  dependence  upon  such  effect;  we  feel  it  in 
the  way  he  "plays  up"  a  brunette  or  blonde,  working  his 
lights  to  show  her  to  the  best  advantage.  But  in  the  ma 
jority  of  cases,  his  results  are  artistic  rather  than  theatrical. 

From  one  of  the  iron  bridges  in  the  flies,  flung  far  above  the 
proscenium  arch  on  the  side,  the  stage  presents  to  view  every 
point  of  vantage.  The  five  sets  of  border  lights,  consisting  of 
two  hundred  and  seventy  lamps  as  an  average,  the  three  banks  of 
bulbs  in  the  "  foots," 1  the  light  strips  ready  to  be  placed  in  any 
wing,  the  baby  lenses  to  counteract  any  false  reflection  of  the 
"foots"  when  shadow  is  thrown  on  the  face  at  inopportune 
moments,  the  large  lenses  on  the  bridges,  the  lamps  centred 

1  Mr.  Belasco  is  now  experimenting  to  do  away  with  the  "  foots." 


DAVID  BELASCO  129 

on  particular  stage  accessories,  the  stereopticon  for  cloud 
effects  during  a  storm  or  sun  or  moonlight,  —  with  these  the 
electrician,  at  the  final  rehearsal,  has  "fixed"  his  diagram, 
which  he  has  by  him  for  the  first  few  regular  performances. 

Amber,  blue,  red,  and  white  are  the  general  colors  in  use 
on  the  stage,  besides  the  direct  flow  of  lime-light.  But  not 
always  will  the  standard  color  do ;  then  the  electrician  mixes 
his  own  stain  and  dips  the  incandescent  bulb  therein.  The 
hard  problem  for  him  to  consider  is  not  how  to  reach  the 
proper  light  out  of  darkness;  it  were  easy  thus  to  obtain  a 
realistic  sun.  But  the  difficult  matter  is  to  have  the  sun  come 
after  the  appearance  of  a  gray  dawn;  in  other  words,  to  ob 
tain  light  effects  out  of  light. 

The  psychology  of  the  switchboard  is  largely  the  problem 
of  counteracting  shadows,  of  bringing  emotion  into  high 
light.  That  is  why  the  old  idea  that  tragedy  must  be  given 
the  tragic  tone  is  an  exploded  theory,  since  contrast,  rather 
than  agreement,  is  the  electrician's  asset.  Death  lurks  in 
the  sunlight  as  well  as  in  the  shadow.  Was  it  not  in  Forbes 
Robertson's  "Hamlet"  that  Ophelia  came  broken-minded 
into  an  orchard  pink  with  the  touch  of  Spring? 

There  is  not  an  inch  of  surface  on  the  stage  that  cannot 
be  subjected  to  a  flood  of  light  which  may  be  softened  or 
intensified  slowly  by  means  of  simplicity  dimmers,  —  devices 
even  more  responsive  than  the  cock  of  a  gas  jet.  So  impor 
tant  a  matter  is  the  switchboard,  that  a  portable  one,  in  no 
way  as  extensive  as  the  stationary  one,  is  carried  on  the  road 
as  an  important  part  of  the  play's  emotional  effect. 

In  "The  Rose  of  the  Rancho,"  during  the  course  of  the 
first  scene,  with  the  sun  beating  down  on  the  Mission  garden, 
with  the  Padre  asleep  on  his  vine-covered  porch,  the  elec 
trician  is  busy  at  the  switch.  Some  lenses  are  focussed  for 
light,  others  for  shadow,  amber  is  thrown  upon  the  gate, 
straw  medium  paints  the  orange  tree.  A  rose  bush  must 


130  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

have  a  special  ray  upon  it,  while  the  arbor,  and  certain  roses, 
must  catch  the  glint  of  sunlight.  One  lens  strikes  the  foun 
tain,  centred  on  the  stage,  coloring  the  stone  seat  upon  which 
Juanita  flirts  with  Kearney.  All  the  while  the  baby  lens 
is  kept  busy  spotting  the  chief  actors  on  the  stage. 

The  significant  part  of  psychology  as  applied  to  stage 
lighting  is  that  in  the  highest  perfection  of  its  handling  it 
is  never  fixed,  particularly  in  plays  dependent  upon  special 
atmosphere.  If  the  sunlight  strikes  the  broad  front  of  the 
Mission  steeple  at  the  top,  the  same  intensity  hardly  suffices 
to  flood  the  entire  building.  As  the  play  progresses,  the  day 
progresses,  and  the  lights  vary;  these  changes  occur  in 
accordance  with  the  electrician's  cues.  The  siesta  hour  of 
this  first  act  approaches  the  eventide,  and  Juanita  falls  deeper 
in  love  with  the  "Gringo,"  Kearney,  as  the  shadows  grow 
more  and  more.  Thus  the  "light  plot"  reads: 

"At  cue:  'Meet  me  at  my  posada,'  change  lenses  Nos. 
7,  5,  3  on  lower  bridge  to  light  amber,  also  lens  on  upper 
bridge  R.,  and  lenses  on  stage  R.  3E.;  also  lens  back  stage 
on  bridge  L.,  and  the  four  open  boxes  in  3.  Put  on  1st  border 
blue  to  f  and  2d,  3d,  and  4th  borders  red  to  full;  take  down 
whites  to  -|." 

This  shorthand  notation  is  indicative  of  mechanical  re 
sponse;  levers  are  handled  like  the  shift-key  of  a  typewriter, 
banks  of  lights  are  interlocked,  so  as  to  respond  to  one  force 
at  the  same  time.  Then  comes  Kearney's  caressing  words: 
"Let  me  hold  your  little  brown  hand  in  mine."  Many 
the  lovers  who  have  strayed  in  a  garden  of  roses  during  the 
gathering  twilight  which  creeps  upon  them!  But  here  on 
the  stage  there  must  be  a  "change  of  all  lenses  on  bridges 
and  open  boxes  to  red,  except  the  two  on  bridge  left,  which  go 
to  salmon;  take  down  foots  to  ^,  and  amber  borders  to  i; 
also  dim  the  tubular  lamps  on  window  and  arbor  R. " 

All  the  time  the  scene  grows  darker;  the  lamp  on  the  rose 


DAVID  BELASCO  131 

bush  is  blinded,  the  fountain  is  cast  in  shadow,  the  belfry  is 
made  misty,  while  the  blues  begin  to  mingle  with  the  reds 
for  evening. 

Finally,  there  is  uttered  Juanita's  cry  of  love  as  Kearney 
leaves  her,  determined  on  saving  her  property  from  the  land- 
grabbers,  looting  California.  Hence,  at  cue,  "Oh,  Gringo, 
why  did  you  come?" 

"Slowly  pass  amber  color  over  baby  lens  in  1  R.  (This 
lamp  is  on  Juanita  at  the  time;  the  color  is  just  passed  over 
the  lamp  and  taken  off  again  while  the  line  is  spoken.)  At 
same  cue,  take  off  both  lamps  in  flies,  L.  1  E.  This  light 
stands  till  end  of  act." 

Here  one  has  suggested  only  a  fractional  part  of  the  me 
chanics  behind  the  stage — the  psychology  of  the  switchboard, 
which  is  only  effective  when  employed  with  reticence, 
with  reason,  with  intelligent  understanding,  with  feeling. 
There  is  the  cartoon  use  of  light  as  seen  in  the  spotter  lime- 
streak  following  the  clown  in  the  circus;  there  is  the  melo 
dramatic  use  of  light,  noted  in  the  splotch  of  green  thrown 
upon  the  face  of  Mansfield  while  he  changed  from  Jekyll  to 
Hyde.  But  the  artist  at  the  switchboard  is  a  believer  in 
the  minor  notes  as  the  best  notes,  and,  as  regards  Mr.  Bel- 
asco's  management,  it  might  be  truly  claimed,  he  does  not 
act  without  reason.  He  has  often  said  he  does  not  believe 
in  dragging  in  sound  simply  for  the  sake  of  sound;  a  wise 
principle  to  uphold,  even  if  it  is  not  always  followed. 

"The  Rose  of  the  Rancho"  serves  our  purpose  for  illus 
trating  the  psychology  of  the  switchboard,  because  its 
atmosphere  involves  constantly  shifting  light;  any  one  of 
Mr.  Belasco's  plays  largely  depends  upon  accessory  of  this 
character,  and  upon  the  mechanics  demanding  constant 
attention.  In  the  third  act  of  this  California  romance,  we 
are  given  a  dark  stage  creeping  to  full  light:  reds  and  blues 
which  succumb  to  early  dawn  ambers.  The  scene  is  on  the 


132  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

roof,  Kearney  waiting  for  the  day.  From  the  main  switch 
the  electrician  is  working  his  "dimmers"  slowly;  some 
clusters  of  blue  —  for  instance  —  must  take  a  generous  ten 
minutes  to  gain  full  intensity.  Here  and  there  on  the  stage 
"boards,"  at  places  known  as  pockets,  which  are  merely 
indicated  spots  where  light  plugs  may  be  inserted,  a  con 
necting  link  is  to  be  had  between  a  lamp  and  the  main  cur 
rent.  The  electrician  can  only  manage  the  general  circuit 
of  "foots"  and  "borders"  and  house  lights;  he  has  assist 
ants  who  are  drilled  by  him  to  work  the  separate  lanterns 
from  the  wings  and  the  bridges.  Every  movement  of  the 
persons  on  that  supposed  roof  is  attended  by  a  correspond 
ing  balance  of  incandescence. 

The  ordinary  dress-suit,  drawing-room  comedy  has  a 
fixed  light  which  does  not  concern  itself  greatly  with  the 
switchboard.  But  whenever  the  latter  is  used,  when  the 
light  values  are  supposed  to  move  for  the  sake  of  theatrical 
effects  so  broad  as  to  hide  physiological  consistency,  then 
the  lack  of  taste  is  felt  as  well  as  seen.  There  is  certain  to 
be  incongruity  of  color,  and  also  streaks  of  light,  ill-con 
cealed,  if  concealed  at  all,  by  the  lanterns  which,  in  the  hands 
of  the  thinking  mechanic,  usually  absorb  and  blend  when 
necessary.  We  once  had  a  production  of  "A  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream,"  more  Edison  than  Shakespeare,  more 
mechanical  device  than  Puck,  more  accessory  than  art.  On 
the  other  hand,  Forbes  Robertson's  desert  scene  in  Shaw's 
"chronicle"  play,  where  Coesar  first  glimpses  Cleopatra  in 
the  arms  of  the  Sphinx,  was  made  spacious  merely  through 
the  varying  of  blue  shadows  on  an  almost  empty  stage,  with 
a  back-drop  of  endless  sky. 

We  are  on  the  road  to  a  great  revolution  in  the  pyschology 
of  the  switchboard.  Ever  since  Garrick  brought  with  him 
from  France  the  footlight  which  replaced  the  ancient  chan 
delier,  we  have  been  studying  how  to  rid  ourselves  of  it; 


DAVID  BELASCO  133 

we  have  a  right  to  discard  anything,  to  introduce  any  device 
which  will  suit  our  purpose,  and  still  retain  the  object  of 
illusion  while  enriching  the  picture.  No  one  has  yet  estab 
lished  sufficiently  well  the  arguments  for  abandoning  foot 
lights.  There  have  recently  been  added  to  the  mechanics  of 
stagecraft  those  electrical  accessories  which  will  facilitate 
the  subtle  effects  of  shade  and  tint. 

One  sympathizes  with  the  son  of  Ellen  Terry,  yet  every 
body  interested  in  the  stage  as  a  civic  necessity  on  one  hand, 
and  as  an  artistic  need  on  the  other,  will  agree  that  Gordon 
Craig  in  "The  Art  of  the  Theatre"  has  carried  his  theories 
of  stage  management  a  step  too  far,  even  as  Maeterlinck 
first  did,  in  formulating  his  principles  for  the  static  drama, 
in  claiming  for  puppet  plays  substance  rather  than  shadow. 
No  theatre  man  will  deny  that  Craig's  designs  of  scenes,  so 
shaded  as  to  secure  bos  relief  without  "foots,"  are  excellent 
where  the  relief  is  needed.  No  manager  is  wholly  oblivious 
to  the  fact  that  though  drama  is  essentially  action,  it  is  also 
picture,  where  every  line  of  the  scene  in  its  relation  with  the 
size  and  color  of  the  players,  where  every  position, —  all  mean 
relative  grouping,  fixed  for  balance  and  perspective.  Miss 
Terry's  scenic  background  for  Ibsen's  "The  Vikings  at 
Helgeland"  adequately  fulfilled  the  theory.  Let  the  theatre 
become  a  masterpiece  of  mechanism,  with  a  technique  pecu 
liar  to  itself,  with  a  director  above  scene  painter,  actor,  play 
wright,  himself  more  creative  than  all  three  put  together,  — 
let  this  bring  us  a  dramatic  renaissance,  and  one  will  scarce 
need  a  written  story  to  compass  a  plot  so  quickly  flashed 
upon  the  mind  in  light,  song,  dance,  and  pantomime. 

Many  of  Mr.  Belasco's  plays,  as  plays,  are  lacking  in  the 
qualities  which  his  scenic  artistry  for  the  moment  supplies. 
"The  Girl  of  the  Golden  West"  is  an  excellent  example 
of  such.  The  moving  scene  down  the  mountainside  to  the 
door  of  the  saloon  does  succeed  marvelously  in  taking  one 


134  THE   AMERICAN   DRAMATIST 

out  of  the  street  and  away  from  the  city.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  moving-picture  concerns,  which  to-day  threaten  the 
theatre,  might  well  point  to  this  scene  as  a  legitimate  excuse 
for  their  existence. 

But  that  Mr.  Belasco,  with  his  scenery  and  with  his  stage 
business,  is  inventive,  becomes  evident  in  any  of  his  plays. 
Take  "  The  Rose  of  the  Rancho,"  where  Juanita  and  Kearney 
are  seated  by  the  well;  the  lover  moves  nearer  and  nearer, 
whereupon  she  seizes  the  gourd  and  throws  water  on  the 
seat  between  them  —  a  stroke  of  business  worth  a  page  of 
dialogue.  Take  "  The  Warrens  of  Virginia"  —  after  the  war, 
the  Southern  General  is  dozing  in  his  garden;  for  the  space 
of  a  second,  one  hears  the  sigh  of  the  wind,  the  spectral  roll 
of  drums,  the  spirit  breathing  of  the  bugles  —  and  he  wakens 
—  all  done  with  the  deft  modulation  which  might  have  been 
turned  into  bathos  by  the  slightest  over-accentuation.  The 
manager  is  thus  painting  for  others. 

These  are  the  qualities  marking  David  Belasco,  which 
represent  his  place  in  American  drama.  He  is  the  creative 
manager  who  writes  his  plays  by  acting  them;  who,  faced 
by  two  stenographers,  evolves  his  characters  and  situations 
in  actual  movement,  now  thinking  of  a  speech  which  he  pins 
up  somewhere  for  his  last  act,  again  jotting  down  some  busi 
ness,  some  note  about  this  act  or  that,  but  always  moving 
surely  toward  the  completion  of  the  first  draft,  so  as  to  begin 
rehearsals.  Were  some  of  his  plays  published  just  as  they 
are  typewritten  for  the  stage,  they  would  be  invaluable  texts 
for  the  amateur  playwright;  they  would  point  to  the  plati 
tudinous  but  none  the  less  absolute  fact  that  the  theatre, 
taken  as  a  whole,  demands  that  the  playwright  must  be 
master  of  more  than  one  set  of  tools. 


HENRY  C.  DE  MILLE 


CHAPTER    VIII 

THE   CASE   OF   PERCY  MACKAYE  AND  HIS   FATHER 

NOT  only  has  the  drama  an  historical  evolution,  but,  like 
any  other  human  activity,  it  is  subject  to  inherited  traits, 
and  is  influenced  by  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Ibsen  believed  in 
the  theory  of  imbibing  the  thoughts  that  were  in  the  air, 
rather  than  in  limiting  those  thoughts  by  an  amount  of 
contradictory  reading.  There  is  no  doubt,  for  instance, 
that  through  Mr.  Carnegie's  gift  of  ten  millions  of  dol 
lars  for  the  furtherance  of  peace,  many  more  people  will  be 
forced  to  think  seriously  on  the  subject,  and  already  there 
is  as  much  discussion  about  who  will  write  the  great  peace 
drama,  as  about  who  will  be  the  great  American  dramatist. 

Subtle  forces  mould  a  man,  but  also  evident  circum 
stances.  In  "Famous  Actor-Families  in  America,"  I  sug 
gested  the  possibilities  of  applying  Galton's  law  of  inheri 
tance  to  the  material  I  had  gathered  from  various  sources. 
The  method  might  likewise  serve  as  a  measure  in  deter 
mining  how  far  Henry  De  Mille's  career  prompted  his  son, 
William,  to  follow  the  same  bent,  and  in  tracing  those 
speculative  characteristics  of  Steele  Mackaye  which  are 
now  evident  in  his  son,  Percy.  Sons  of  fathers  who  hold 
positions  in  a  profession  are  most  likely  to  continue  in  that 
profession,  but  whereas  young  De  Mille,  furthered  by 
Belasco,  uses  the  theatre  more  as  a  business  than  as  an  art, 
young  Mackaye  is  prone  to  forget  the  theatre  in  a  commend 
able,  but  over-serious,  attitude  toward  art. 


136  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

The  theatre  has  always  been  subject  to  attack;  it  has 
always  been  threatened  by  poor  quality  and  plethoric 
quantity.  Young  De  Mille  takes  things  as  he  finds  them, 
making  a  reporter's  use  of  a  certain  dramatic  ability;  young 
Mackaye  is  more  morose  than  rebellious  over  the  theatre, 
about  which  he  speculates  in  ideal  fashion.  But,  never 
theless,  these  men  either  have  to  conform  to  the  conventions 
of  the  time  and  to  the  interests  of  the  period,  or  else  submit 
to  the  relentless  verdict  of  the  people. 

In  the  days  when  the  Madison  Square  Theatre,  in  West 
Twenty-fourth  Street,  New  York,  was  the  center  of  theatri 
cal  interest,  and  when  the  Mallory  Brothers  combined  this 
business  with  that  of  issuing  The  Churchman,  which  still 
survives  as  a  religious  weekly,  theatre  managers  were  read 
ing  their  own  plays.  Daly  always  gave  personal  attention 
to  the  manuscripts  sent  him.  Palmer  announced  openly 
that  he  was  not  favorable  to  the  native  playwright.  But, 
to  judge  by  the  personal  note-book  of  Henry  De  Mille,  who 
read  plays  with  the  assistance  of  Daniel  Frohman,  Franklin 
Sargent,  and  David  Belasco,  the  manuscripts  continued  to 
flow  into  the  office  of  the  little  playhouse.  In  three  months, 
during  1883,  some  two  hundred  dramas  by  Americans  were 
read,  and  the  possible  subjects  were  never  accepted  without 
material  alteration.  When  Bronson  Howard's  "Young 
Mrs.  Winthrop"  was  in  preparation,  it  was  rewritten  in 
accordance  with  a  multitude  of  suggestions,  and  was  then 
handed  over  to  Belasco,  who  had  already  evinced  his  re 
markable  gift  for  certain  phases  of  stage  management.  The 
theatre  of  that  day  knew  what  it  wanted,  and  the  play 
wright  was  whipped  into  shape.  The  current  papers  were 
then  as  persistent  in  their  attack  upon  the  insipidity  of 
the  Madison  Square  drama,  as  critics  are  to-day  upon  the 
pornographic  literature  which  passes  for  virile  thinking. 

I  believe  that  both  young  De  Mille  and  young  Mackaye 


PERCY    MACKAYE    AND    HIS   FATHER    137 

have  an  advantage  in  this  race  for  dramatic  honors;  it 
remains  to  be  seen  whether  they  will  profit  by  the  past  his 
tory  of  the  theatre.  Their  fathers  were  writing  at  a  time 
when  their  contemporaries  in  dramatic  authorship  were 
Bronson  Howard,  Bartley  Campbell,  George  Jessop,  Fred 
Marsden,  A.  C.  Gunter,  Fred  Maeder,  James  J.  McClosky, 
A.  R.  Cazauran,  Edward  Harrigan,  and  H.  G.  Carleton. 
William  De  Mille  is  greatly  in  advance  of  that  period,  as 
far  as  methods  and  interests  are  concerned;  he  is  one  of  the 
numberless  newspaper  men  who  is  content  with  effective 
incident,  and  he  leaves  speculation  alone.  In  "  Strongheart," 
which  had  a  slight  problem  of  Indian  blood  in  it,  he  failed 
to  do  what  he  wished  above  all  else  to  do;  he  originally 
intended  to  consider  the  theme  inadequately  treated  by 
Edward  Sheldon  in  "The  Nigger  "  (1910).  There  is  nothing 
pioneer,  or  even  largely  stimulating  in  young  De  Mille. 

Percy  Mackaye  is  of  a  different  stature;  he  comes  out 
of  the  past  into  the  present,  and  his  ear  and  heart  have 
caught  certain  phrases  which  remind  him  of  the  Golden 
Age  of  Greece.  De  Mille  shook  from  him  the  cap  and  gown 
of  Columbia  University;  Mackaye  walks  in  the  shadow  of 
Harvard,  with  an  academic  command  of  literature,  and  with 
a  poetic  gift  which  is  not  spontaneous,  though  it  be  elab 
orate  and  earnestly  used.  Being  a  poet,  we  must  compare  him 
with  poets. 

There  is  more  hope  for  him  than  for  Stephen  Phillips, 
who  has  steadily  declined  in  effectiveness  since  writing 
"Herod."  They  both  are  wedded  to  the  past.  Phillips 
gave  us  a  Francesco,,  Mackaye  a  Jeanne  D 'Arc;  Phillips 
wrote  in  the  face  of  Goethe's  "  Faust,"  Mackaye  in  the  face 
of  Chaucer's  "Canterbury  Tales."  Phillips  turned  to 
Ulysses,  Mackaye  to  Sappho  and  Phaon.  In  other  words, 
being  poets  who  are  using  the  theatre  as  a  means  of  poetic 
communication,  rather  than  as  a  high  end  in  itself,  they 


138  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

largely  adhere  to  the  Shakespeare  precedent  of  finding 
inspiration  for  their  plots  outside  of  their  native  imagina 
tions.  Unlike  John  Masefield,  whose  "Pompey  the  Great" 
is  a  rewriting  of  history,  and  is  tinged  through  and  through 
with  broad  and  colorful  expressions  of  democratic  strength, 
they  unfold  their  dialogue  in  lines  of  haunting  beauty  but 
of  reminiscent  measure. 

Yet  Mr.  Mackaye  possesses  a  humor  which  is  totally 
lacking  in  Phillips,  a  perspective  of  the  present  which  allows 
of  such  sparkling  cynicism  as  one  detects  in  "Mater"  and 
"Anti-Matrimony,"  even  if  it  is  not  sufficiently  analyzed 
to  make  him  an  invigorating  critic  of  life,  civic  and  personal. 

He  is  a  poet  who  has  "murmurs  and  scents  of  the  in 
finite  seas,"  without  any  deep  knowledge  of  the  forces 
of  existence.  Stephen  Phillips  utters  haunting  lines  of  pure, 
sensuous  beauty;  Mackaye  writes  lines  of  equal  beauty,  but 
lacking  in  that  simple,  lyric  passion  which  makes  "  Francesca 
da  Rimini"  so  delicate.  It  strikes  me  that  Mr.  Mackaye 
as  a  poet  is  only  a  vehicle  for  unformed  and  inadequately 
founded  social  views.  He  has  poetic  quality  rather  than 
the  abiding  strength  of  the  true  poet.  Occasion  has  done 
much  to  shape  his  course  from  the  very  day  that  his  father 
locked  him,  a  sixteen-year-old  boy,  in  a  room  and  told  him 
to  write  a  Storm  Choral  for  a  Columbian  Exposition  spec 
tacular,  before  he  could  come  out.1 

1  Percy  Mackaye  was  born  in  New  York,  March  16,  1875.  He 
took  a  Bachelor  of  Arts  degree  at  Harvard  in  1897.  He  is  the  author 
of  "A  Garland  to  Sylvia,"  written  while  he  was  in  Europe.  He 
matriculated  at  the  University  of  Leipzig,  and  his  studies  there 
partly  resulted  in  the  writing  of  "Fenris  the  Wolf"  (1905).  "The 
Canterbury  Pilgrims"  (prose)  was  published  in  1903,  "Jeanne 
D'Arc"  in  1906;  "Sappho  and  Phaon"  in  1907.  "The  Scarecrow  " 
(1908), "  Mater "  (1908), "  Anti-Matrimony  "  (1910),  and  " Thorough 
breds"  (1911)  are  among  his  other  pieces. 

Among  his  produced  plays,  "Jeanne  D'Arc"  (1906)  was  mounted 
by  Sothern  and  Marlowe,  Bertha  Kalich  appeared  in  "Sappho  and 


PERCY   MACKAYE   AND   HIS   FATHER    139 

The  theatre  critic  has  from  generation  to  generation 
deplored  the  fast  decading  drama,  and  has  vainly  searched 
for  the  art  spot  in  the  chaos  of  commercialism  on  which 
to  rest  his  hopes  and  to  raise  his  temple.  Traveling  through 
the  slough,  confident  of  a  bright  to-morrow,  keen  to  the 
civic  necessity  of  the  play,  Mr.  Mackaye  is  searching  for 
the  art  centre.  He  is  intensely  earnest,  and  the  persistent 
questions  in  his  prose  work,  which  follow  one  after  the 
other  in  logical  order,  point  to  undoubted  weaknesses  in 
the  present  theatrical  system.  But  deep  conviction  on 
his  part,  however  to  be  welcomed,  does  not  result  in  a  con 
viction  on  our  part  that  endowment  on  the  one  hand  is  the 
only  way  to  free  the  theatre  of  present  methods,  or  that 
endowment  on  the  other  will  create  a  better  type  of  drama, 
especially  of  the  poetic  drama. 

Mr.  Mackaye's  "The  Playhouse  and  the  Play"  (1909)  is  a 
small  volume  of  lectures  which  have  been  delivered  before  uni 
versity  bodies,  and  which  are  now  slightly  added  to,  but 
still  unchanged  as  to  intimate  and  personal  style.  The  eye 
is  immediately  caught  by  the  frequency  of  italicized  lines; 
these  might  be  taken  as  the  measure  of  Mr.  Mackaye's 
argument.  The  scope  is  purely  local,  except  where  the 
author's  culture  seeks  to  connect  the  present  with  Greek 
civilization.  The  book  is  idealistic,  not  soundly  philosophic 
—  idealism  based  on  practical  knowledge  as  a  producing 
playwright.  In  the  building  of  a  civic  theatre  for  the  people, 
in  the  fitting  of  the  drama  to  become  a  vehicle  for  the  ideals 
of  democracy,  to  clear  the  theatrical  field  of  its  present 
business  standards  is  only  one  phase  in  the  education  of 

Phaon"  (1907),  Henrietta  Crosman  in  "Anti-Matrimony"  (1910). 
Both  "Mater"  (1908)  and  "The  Scarecrow"  (1911)  have  likewise 
been  given. 

Mr.  Mackaye  has  written  many  occasional  poems  and  has  pub 
lished  a  book  of  essays  on  the  theatre,  besides  a  prose  version  of 
Chaucer's  "The  Canterbury  Tales  "  (1904). 


140  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

dramatic  taste.  I  cannot  see  that  divorcing  art  from  money 
will  immediately  improve  art  or  better  the  supply  and  de 
mand —  although  it  will  clear  the  theatre  atmosphere. 
Any  one  at  all  versed  in  things  of  the  stage  will  note  the  con 
sistency  of  Mr.  Mackaye's  "Law  of  Deterioration,"  based 
on  such  self-evident  facts  as  the  preponderance  of  the  emo 
tional  demand  over  the  intellectual,  brought  about  by  the 
antagonism  between  the  rational  aim  of  theatrical  business 
and  the  rational  aim  of  democratic  art.  Henry  Arthur 
Jones  established  this  condition  more  fully  in  his  essay: 
"Our  Modern  Drama  —  Is  It  an  Art  or  an  Amusement?" 

It  is  true  that  what  the  drama  needs  is  to  be  subjected  to 
an  atmosphere  of  artistic  rather  than  of  business  compe 
tition.  Yet  one  might  justly  fear  that  the  removal  of  the 
restraining  hand  of  "profit  and  loss"  would  largely  afford 
added  hope  to  the  dilettante,  to  the  disappointed  play 
wright.  No  suggestion  has  been  offered  as  to  whether  or 
not  there  would  be  competent  people  to  run  the  theatre, 
or  where  and  how  the  theatre-goers  would  receive  the  edu 
cation  which  would  make  them  prefer  Charles  Rann  Ken 
nedy's  "The  Winterfeast"  to  comic  opera,  or  Mr.  Mackaye's 
"Mater"  to  vaudeville.  We  all  deplore  the  benumbing 
hand  of  commercialism,  recognizing  that  business  methods, 
nevertheless,  have  raised  the  status  of  an  actor  from  that 
of  vagabondia  to  that  of  professionalism,  but  it  all  depends 
on  what  we  mean  by  absolute  freedom  in  the  theatre  to 
convince  us  as  to  whether  absolute  endowment  will  hasten 
the  desired  goal. 

In  his  lectures  on  "The  Drama  of  Democracy"  and  "The 
Dramatist  as  Citizen,"  Mr.  Mackaye  is  most  suggestive; 
if  nothing  else,  his  book  will  provoke  discussion,  and  in  my 
opinion  that  is  what  he  wishes,  for  he  is  the  dramatist  be 
neath  it  all.  The  dissemination  of  whatever  seeds  of  art 
may  be  in  the  American  people  through  channels  of  least 


PERCY  MACKAYK  AND  CHARLES  RANN  KENNEDY 

Taken  in  the  Bohemian  Club's  Redwood  Grove,  California,  August,  1908 


PERCY   MACKAYE    AND    HIS    FATHER    141 

richness  has  blighted  the  product.  There  is  the  fine  art 
for  the  few,  and  the  vaudeville  for  the  crowd.  Conditions 
are  chiefly  responsible  for  the  absence  of  evidences  pointing 
to  a  fine  art  for  the  many,  in  other  words  —  to  a  drama  of 
democracy.  Mr.  Mackaye  has  the  evil  well  indicated  here; 
the  poet  in  him  feels  the  pulse  of  the  people.  He  writes: 
"The  status  of  the  playhouse  in  society  is  as  vital  as  the 
status  of  the  university  in  society.  The  dignity  and  effi 
ciency  of  the  one  demand  the  same  safeguard  against  in 
ward  deterioration  as  the  dignity  and  efficiency  of  the 
other.  The  functions  of  both  are  educative." 

Young  Mackaye  sincerely  desires  to  be  a  citizen,  but  his 
social  philosophy  is  weak  and  his  historical  perspective  is 
not  sufficiently  defined  to  lend  authority  to  the  definitions 
he  frames  or  to  the  strictures  he  utters  in  his  numerous 
lectures  and  talks.  From  his  father  he  has  learned  the  use 
of  a  certain  largeness  of  scene;  from  the  present  he  has 
drawn  a  certain  restlessness  and  shapeless  idealism  which  are 
waiting  for  systematizing.  But  he  has  not  found  himself, 
and  the  reason  lies,  not  in  the  theatrical  conditions  which 
surround  him,  but  in  the  inheritance  and  the  tradition  which 
are  his  —  the  inheritance  of  his  father,  and  the  tradition  of 
Harvard  University. 

James  Steele  Mackaye  was  born  in  Buffalo  during  1844, 
and  at  the  age  of  seven  moved  to  New  York.  His  father 
was  a  man  of  some  means,  who  had  a  home  just  outside  of 
Buffalo,  known  as  Castle  Mackaye;  while  his  grandfather,  a 
Scotchman  of  sturdy  build,  wore  the  cloth,  and  died  at  the 
advanced  age  of  one  hundred  and  twenty,  boasting  of  hav 
ing  lived  one  hundred  years  in  the  same  parish. 

The  move  to  New  York  was  due  to  legal  connections  of 
Mackaye's  father,  who  likewise,  as  a  man  of  affairs,  once 
held  the  position  of  president  of  the  Western  Union  Telegraph 
Company.  It  was  not  until  he  went  to  Paris,  at  the  age  of 


142  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

sixteen,  that  Steele  turned  his  attention  to  the  stage,  and 
even  then  there  was  no  opportunity  to  gratify  his  interest 
practically.  At  eighteen  he  came  back  to  America,  where 
for  sixteen  months  he  served  in  the  army  as  a  member  of 
the  Seventh  Regiment.  Reaching  the  age  of  twenty-two, 
and  still  intent  on  the  stage,  he  procured  a  small  engage 
ment  at  the  Old  Bowery  Theatre  in  New  York,  but  soon 
after  was  sent  abroad  as  an  agent  for  buying  pictures.  Once 
more  in  Paris,  he  haunted  the  studios  and  the  theatres,  and 
chance  took  him  in  the  path  of  Francois  Delsarte,  who  recog 
nized  in  him  a  startling  likeness  to  his  dead  son,  and  who 
took  him  under  his  tutelage. 

From  now  on,  and  for  many  years  to  come,  Mackaye  was 
to  be  an  exponent  of  principles  in  acting  which  subdued  the 
old-time  ranting,  and  aimed  at  the  reproduction  of  natural 
movement,  and  of  what  the  papers  of  the  time  called  "  emo 
tionally  gentle  manner."  So  closely  did  the  youthful  actor 
identify  himself  with  the  methods  of  his  teacher,  that  he 
was  known  in  the  papers  as  "Delsarte  Mackaye";  but  no 
amount  of  ridicule  could  deter  him  from  his  set  purpose. 
Later  in  life,  Mackaye  wrote: 

"  A  man  to  be  a  true  actor  must  not  only  possess  the  power 
to  portray  vividly  the  emotions  which  in  any  given  situation 
would  be  natural  to  himself,  but  he  must  study  the  char 
acter  of  the  man  whom  he  impersonates,  and  then  act  as 
that  man  would  act  in  a  like  situation.  This  is  what  Del 
sarte  taught  and  what  Rachel,  Son  tag,  and  Calvalho  studied 
with  him." 

During  1874,  Mackaye  lectured  extensively  on  the  Del 
sarte  system,  speaking  of  the  occult  nature  of  emotion;  of 
the  science  of  expression,  illustrated  by  pantomime;  of  the 
necessity  for  aesthetic  gymnastics,  illustrated  by  chromatic 
scales  of  emotion  in  the  face  and  figure. 

At  that  time  there  was  something  more  or  less  theoretical 


PERCY   MACKAYE    AND    HIS    FATHER    143 

in  such  a  method;  people  were  regarded  as  poseurs  who 
adopted  it.  Hence  it  was  that  Mackaye  was  spoken  of  as 
a  speculative  dreamer.  It  is  true  that  throughout  life 
people  said  of  him  that  his  crude  idealism  was  due  to  de 
fects  in  his  education;  his  fancies  forced  him  into  many 
experiments  which  could  not  possibly  find  practical  ful 
filment.  But  nevertheless,  he  was  of  a  serious  turn  of  mind, 
and  of  an  experimental  nature,  and  these  characteristics  com 
bined  to  give  him  a  distinct  streak  of  philosophical  specu 
lation,  which  is  detected  in  his  utterances  upon  aesthetics. 

When  Delsarte  found  himself  in  the  midst  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war,  Mackaye  was  traveling  in  Switzerland  (July, 
1870);  and  on  his  return  to  America,  hearing  that  his  old 
friend  was  in  a  destitute  condition,  he  immediately  arranged 
for  a  lecture  at  Harvard  University,  the  proceeds  from  which 
—  amounting  to  ten  thousand  francs  —  were  sent  to  Del 
sarte.  The  latter  died  in  1871,  bequeathing  to  his  pupil 
many  unpublished  manuscripts.  There  is  no  discounting 
Mackaye's  enthusiasm  over  the  Delsarte  principles;  his 
interest  was  not  only  deep,  but  his  execution  vivid,  so  much 
so  that  Forrest,  listening  to  him,  jumped  up  in  that  im 
petuous  manner  of  his,  and  exclaimed:  "By  G — d,  my 
noble  boy,  you  have  let  in  a  flood  of  light!"  Not  only  did 
he  establish  a  school  of  acting  which  should  uphold  French 
naturalism,  but  his  first  venture  in  the  theatrical  field,  the 
St.  James  Theatre,  which  opened  in  January,  1872,  was 
popularly  spoken  of  as  the  Delsarte  house. 

At  the  very  outset  it  is  well  to  emphasize  the  theatrical 
rashness  of  Mackaye  and  the  philosophic  severity  of  his 
criticism;  it  is  well  to  note  that  his  theory  of  acting  affected 
his  work,  making  it  self-conscious;  while  his  tendency  to 
experiment  made  him  limit  or  expand  his  ideas  in  mathe 
matical  ratio.  A  man  of  many  failures,  he  was  yet  the  fore 
runner  of  diverse  excellent  theatrical  innovations.  His 


144  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

double  stage  for  the  Madison  Square  Theatre  was  not  as 
perfect  as  the  revolving  platform  at  the  New  Theatre,  but 
the  principle  of  usefulness  was  practically  the  same.  His 
Spectatorium  may  have  fallen  into  ruins,  carrying  with  it 
a  fortune  and  the  health  of  its  conceiver,  but  it  foreshadowed 
the  modern  Hippodrome.  He  never  profited  by  failure,  and 
his  enthusiasm  always  made  him  forgetful  of  the  fact  that 
finance  requires  practical  guarantee.  Yet  no  man  of  the 
time,  unless  it  was  Henry  De  Mille,  had  better  opportunity 
than  he  to  know  the  physical  features  of  the  theatre. 

His  career  as  actor  opened  in  1872,  when  he  appeared 
in  "Monaldi,"  a  Venetian  story  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
based  on  Washington  Allston's  novel.  His  pale,  classic 
features,  his  aquiline  nose,  his  sensitive  mouth,  his  intel 
lectual  and  quiet  expression,  all  tended  to  mark  this  tall, 
slender,  and  graceful  man  with  distinction.  I  have  before 
me  a  clipping  which  conveys  an  impression  of  Mackaye's 
nature  beneath  the  practice  of  his  Delsarte  methods:  "If 
he  were  paralyzed  from  the  neck  down,  he  could  express 
more  with  his  face  than  nine-tenths  of  justly  celebrated 
actors  could  with  all  the  appliances  which  nature  and  art 
have  given  them.  His  speechlessness  is  as  crammed  with 
expression  as  a  thunder-cloud  with  electricity."  There  were 
stirring  within  him  many  conflicting  interests;  the  author, 
actor,  and  lecturer  did  not  meet  on  common  ground.  During 
part  of  1872,  Mackaye  was  in  Paris,  studying  with  Regnier, 
while  in  the  winter  of  that  year  he  remained  in  England, 
meeting  Charles  Reade,  Wilkie  Collins,  and  Tom  Taylor. 
With  the  latter  he  was  led  into  further  experiment,  collabo 
rating  in  the  writing  of  such  plays  as  "A  Radical  Fool/'  "Clan- 
carty,"  and  "Arkwright's  Wife."  At  this  time,  also,  he  was 
prompted  to  dramatize  George  Eliot's  "Silas  Marner"; 
the  matter  went  as  far  as  his  meeting  the  novelist,  but  at 
the  crucial  point,  Lewes,  "the  dragon,"  stepped  in  and  put 


Photo,  by  Barony 


STEELE  MAC!VAYE 

Act.  35 


PERCY   MACKAYE    AND    HIS    FATHER    145 

a  stop  to  further  negotiations.  It  was  in  the  Spring  of  this 
year  that  Tom  Taylor  successfully  urged  Mackaye  to  ap 
pear  as  Hamlet,  bringing  to  his  interpretation  all  the  origi 
nality  of  the  Delsarte  method  (May  5,  1872).  An  edition  of 
the  play  was  issued  with  notes,  and  with  indication  of  new 
stage  business. 

Evidently  Mackaye  was  encouraged  by  his  start,  for  I 
have  the  record  of  a  booklet,  printed  in  1872  while  he  was 
in  Paris,  presenting  "Extracts  from  the  Press  in  Reference 
to  the  Three  Months'  Dramatic  Season  of  James  Steele 
Mackaye  in  New  York  City,  from  January  8  to  April  1, 
1872."  During  that  period,  Nym  Crinkle  appears  to  have 
come  to  his  rescue,  while  he  was  being  attacked  for  his 
persistency  in  the  Delsarte  methods.  This  was  the  season 
of  the  St.  James  Theatre,  where,  on  February  1,  1872, 
Mackaye's  "Marriage,"  an  adaptation  of  Octave  Feuillet's 
"Julie,"  was  given  a  hearing. 

Mackaye's  novitiate  in  the  art  of  playwriting  was  spent 
in  collaboration  and  in  adaptation,  two  of  the  dominant 
tendencies  of  the  day.  Not  only  this,  but  the  men  associated 
with  the  Madison  Square  Theatre  reinforced  the  ideas 
presented  by  others.  Being  actors  as  well  as  writers,  they 
knew  wherein  weak  situations  might  be  bettered.  So  that 
Mackaye's  list  of  plays,  while  pointing  to  technical  activity, 
does  not  impress  one  with  any  striking  originality.  Here 
again  we  find  the  man  meeting  with  success,  yet  not  suffi 
ciently  concentrated  to  be  more  than  of  temporary  influence. 
As  an  author,  he  is  to  be  credited  with  the  following: 

"Marriage"  (1872);  "Arkwright's  Wife"  (1873);  "Clan- 
carty"  (1874,  with  Taylor);  "Rose  Michel"  (1875,  collabo 
ration);  "Queen  and  Woman"  (1876,  adaptation  from 
Victor  Hugo,  with  G.  V.  Pritchard);  "Won  at  Last"  (1877); 
"Through  the  Dark"  (1878);  "An  Iron  Will"  (1879,  later 
"  Hazel  Kirke,"  1880) ;  "A  Fool's  Errand  "  (1881,  adaptation) ; 


146  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

"Dakolar"  (1884);  "In  Spite  of  All"  (1885);  "Rienzi" 
(1886,  rewritten  for  Barrett);  "Anarchy"  (1887);  "A 
Noble  Rogue"  (1888;  also  "Money  Mad,"  modeled  on 
the  style  of  Hugo's  "JeanValjean");  "Paul  Kauvar"  (known 
as  "Anarchy"). 

The  majority  of  these  plays  contained  melodrama  com 
mon  to  that  period.  It  was  a  period  when  the  physical 
outlines  of  the  theatre  were  materially  changing;  when  the 
old  gas-jets,  laboriously  turned  on  at  each  performance, 
were  now  on  the  eve  of  being  simultaneously  ignited  by  an 
electric  spark;  when  Ogden  Doremus  was  experimenting 
with  asbestos  curtains,  to  give  fireproof  protection  to  the 
theatre;  when  Mackaye  himself  was  designing  orchestra 
chairs.  It  was  the  later  day  of  the  Boucicault  drama,  which 
had  made  demands  upon  the  scenic  pictures,  introducing 
physical  details  that  were  regarded  as  marvelous.  It  was 
the  time  of  Kate  Claxton,  Ida  Vernon,  Clara  Morris,  Mon 
tague,  Gilbert,  Holland,  and  Ponisi. 

Mackaye  fell  readily  into  the  atmosphere;  he  imbibed 
much  of  the  Boucicault  technique,  without  its  flexibility, 
without  its  humor,  without  its  easy  grace  and  cheerfulness. 
And  yet  he  was  not  considered  a  conservative;  on  the  con 
trary,  the  papers  regarded  him  very  much  as  a  defier  of 
tradition,  especially  in  comparison  with  Wallack  and  Daly. 
He  was  only  rash,  however,  in  the  outward  scope  of  the 
theatre;  for  his  plays  are  constructed  along  conventional 
lines,  with  an  emotionalism  either  akin  to  Boucicault  or 
to  Dumas'  "Camille." 

The  five  acts  of  "Won  at  Last"  are  epitomized  graphically 
in  the  program  as:  "Act  I,  Ashes;  Act  II,  Embers;  Act 
III,  Fire;  Act  IV,  Flame;  Act  V,  Fireside."  " Hazel  Kirke," 
which  was  first  presented  in  1879  under  the  title  of  "The 
Iron  Will,"  bears  all  the  characteristics  of  the  romantic  and 
melodramatic  school  of  Boucicault.  Indeed,  critics  never 


PERCY   MACKAYE    AND    HIS   FATHER    147 

let  Mackaye  alone  about  the  reminiscent  touches  to  be  found 
in  his  dramas.  Earnest  though  he  always  was,  and  however 
high  his  ideals,  he  could  not  escape  the  sensationalism  of 
Tennyson's  and  Charles  Reade's  "Dora";  of  "Amy  Rob- 
sart,"  and  of  "  Rose  Michel,"  which  he  helped  to  adapt. 

Mackaye  and  De  Mille  were  a  great  part  of  the  force  of 
the  little  Madison  Square  Theatre  —  a  theatre  whose  greatest 
thorns  seem  to  have  been  the  Rev.  Dr.  G.  S.  Mallory  and 
Marshall  Mallory.  They  were  astute  business  men,  and 
understood  how  to  obtain  the  best  of  any  bargain.  When 
Mackaye  went  to  them,  the  understanding  was  that  he  was 
to  relinquish  all  patents  and  copyrights  for  the  period  of 
ten  years,  and  that  he  was  to  have  five  thousand  dollars 
and  profits  under  certain  conditions.  But  the  contract  was 
not  definite  enough;  on  either  side  it  might  be  disturbed  at 
will.  "Hazel  Kirke"  ran  for  nearly  five  hundred  nights, 
with  Mackaye  every  now  and  then  assuming  the  role  of 
Dunstan,  but  whenever  the  Mallorys  had  the  suspicion  that 
they  were  losing  money,  it  was  a  signal  for  them  to  try  to 
revoke  their  contracts.  In  fact,  the  theatre  of  that  day  was 
not  so  good  as  the  theatre  of  the  present.  Boucicault  was 
continually  involved  in  litigation,  and  all  dramatists  had 
their  successes  pirated  on  every  occasion.  In  1881,  accord 
ing  to  one  authority,  four  companies  were  enjoined  for 
playing  distorted  versions  of  "Hazel  Kirke." 

However  much  Mackaye  may  have  had  the  correct  idea 
regarding  the  close  treatment  of  drama,  it  was  only  in  the 
expansiveness  of  outward  detail  that  he  dared  depart  from 
the  conventional  structure.  No  man  realized  more  philo 
sophically  than  he  that  a  good  play  must  contain  some  deep 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  some  wide  experience  of  life, 
and  some  surety  in  dealing  with  the  craft  of  the  stage.  And 
he  drew  from  himself  and  his  own  ambition,  when  he  stated 
the  requisites  of  a  dramatist  to  be: 


148  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

"  Mechanical  instinct,  poetic  fancy,  sensitive  sympathies, 
passionate  fervor  and  vivid  imagination,  thoroughness  in 
preparation,  industry  in  elaboration,  conscience  in  revision, 
courage  in  excision,  and  dominating  all  this,  that  breadth 
of  mind  which  breeds  humility,  and  that  depth  of  heart 
whose  understanding  love  goes  out  in  charity  to  all  mankind." 

But  though  he  would  have  had  the  process  so,  plays  of 
the  Daly  period  were  not  evolved;  they  were  not  intensive. 
Realism  was  just  beginning  to  modify  the  romantic  glow  of 
"The  Two  Orphans"  and  "The  Lady  of  Lyons,"  while  it 
could  hardly  be  claimed  that  violent  action  had  been  suc 
ceeded  by  rational  themes.  What  Mackaye  called  "the 
focal  purpose"  of  a  play  had  not  departed  from  French  models 
or  from  French  emotionalism.  Howard,  Belasco,  De  Mille, 
and  Mackaye  all  came  under  its  spell,  the  latter  speculating 
upon  a  way  of  escape.  "The  master  playwright,"  so  he 
said,  "combines  the  constructive  faculty  of  the  mechanic, 
and  the  analytical  mind  of  a  philosopher,  with  the  aesthetic 
instinct  of  a  poet,  and  the  ethical  ardor  of  an  apostle." 

There  is  no  doubting  the  truth  that  Mackaye  was  serious- 
minded;  in  fact,  he  was  continually  active,  a  peculiar  com 
bination  of  a  Swedenborgian,  a  theatrical  Edison,  and  an 
undisciplined  reader  of  Tyndall,  Huxley,  and  Spencer.  His 
interests  lay  between  religion  and  civil  engineering;  he  was 
diversely  equipped,  and  a  specialist  only  in  what  actual 
experience  had  taught  him.  But  he  never  heeded  experience 
for  long,  preferring  to  follow  his  imagination  and  his  invent 
iveness.  Like  all  dramatists,  he  was  alive  to  the  moment, 
and  when,  in  1887,  his  "Paul  Kauvar"  was  presented,  con 
taining  all  the  earmarks  of  its  kind  in  flimsy  sentiment, 
verboseness,  and  theatrical  effect,  he  nevertheless  claimed  him 
self  to  be  deeply  concerned  in  the  problem  of  "anarchy," 
under  which  name  the  play  was  first  known. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  papers  called  "Paul 


PERCY   MACKAYE    AND    HIS    FATHER    149 

Kauvar"  "tumultuous  and  declamatory/'  and  critics  saw 
in  it  imitations  of  Bulwer,  the  play  attracted  wide  attention, 
since  there  was  beneath  it  a  slight  tinge  of  contemporaneous 
ness,  despite  its  Red  Terror  atmosphere.  For  Mackaye, 
being  convinced  that  demagogues  were  spreading  a  spirit  of 
anarchy  among  the  masses,  determined  to  show  wherein 
tyranny  was  unjust,  in  the  hopes  of  counteracting  a  revo 
lutionary  spirit  which  he  felt  existed  among  the  people.  To 
do  this,  he  demanded  a  large  spectacle,  which  drew  from  Nym 
Crinkle  the  remarks:  "Mr.  Steele  Mackaye,  whatever  else 
he  may  be,  is  not  a  'lisping  hawthorn  bud.'  He  doesn't 
embroider  such  napkins  as  the  'Abbe  Constantin,'  and  he 
can't  arrange  such  waxworks  as  'Elaine.'  He  can't  stereo 
scope  an  emotion,  but  he  can  incarnate  it  if  you  give  him 
people  enough." 

The  play  was  doubtless  the  outcome  of  certain  ideas  which 
were  in  the  air.  It  was  the  old  cry  which  was  raised  in  re 
gard  to  the  influx  of  emigrants  whose  excessive  poverty, 
together  with  the  yoke  of  political  oppression,  drove  them 
to  the  new  country.  But  with  them  Mackaye  felt  that 
they  brought  certain  foreign  ideas  which  were  inimical  to  the 
welfare  of  the  American  laborer.  So  it  was  that  "Anarchy," 
besides  being  a  melodramatic  spectacular,  was  also  a  pur 
pose  play  in  the  newspaper  sense.  In  1888,  he  wrote: 

"  In  the  struggle  between  capital  and  labor  in  this  country, 
the  grasping  spirit  of  corporations  and  the  demoralizing 
influence  of  political  corruption  are  constantly  affording 
the  demagogue  or  the  dreamer,  who  has  nothing  to  lose  and 
everything  to  gain  by  the  destruction  of  civil  order,  an  op 
portunity  to  preach  anarchic  doctrines  with  great  plausibility. 
When  I  first  discovered  the  large  extent  to  which  the  pas 
sions  of  the  working  classes  were  being  played  upon  by  the 
fine  phrases  of  these  insidious  foes  of  the  American  Republic, 
I  determined  to  investigate,  as  carefully  as  circumstances 


150  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

would  permit,  the  means  by  which  these  foreign  influences 
were  seeking  to  achieve  their  diabolic  results  in  this  country." 

After  his  dispute  with  the  Mallorys,  Mr.  Mackaye  went 
over  to  the  Lyceum  Theatre,  on  Fourth  Avenue,  which 
playhouse  soon  began  to  gain  prestige  under  Daniel 
Frohman,  and  where  E.  H.  Sothern  was  on  the  eve  of 
large  recognition.  Mackaye's  enthusiasm,  his  charm  of 
manner  and  his  grace,  made  him  well  liked,  and  he  was 
much  more  at  ease  in  private  talk  than  in  acting.  He 
was  a  charming  conversationalist,  and  possessed  what 
critics  called  a  mind  "  ratiocinative,  not  poetic."  Inter 
ested  in  painting,  sculpture,  teaching,  managing,  playwrit- 
ing  and  inventing,  he  lacked  system;  he  was  devoid  of 
concentration.  Philosophically,  he  was  under  the  influence 
of  the  transcendentalists,  and  even  the  mystic  touches 
in  Delsarte  bore  evidences  of  Catholic  symbolism.  His 
language,  outside  his  plays,  was  marked  by  metaphysical 
distinctions,  seen,  for  instance,  in  an  excellent  letter  sent  to 
his  son  from  Chicago,  on  December  15,  1893,  in  answer  to 
Percy's  objections  to  changes  made  in  some  chorals  he  had 
written.  The  statements  show  first  of  all  a  serious  attitude 
toward  all  creative  work,  as  well  as  a  modesty  which  was  no 
small  part  of  his  charm;  they  are  likewise  evidences  of  a 
speculative  mind  which  delighted  in  analyzing  the  absolute, 
the  relative,  and  the  conscious  in  terms  of  art.  This 
is  what  he  wished  to  do  in  his  big  Columbian  spectacle 
prepared  for  his  Spectatorium;  every  detail  of  it  was  to  have 
philosophical  value;  even  the  choruses  were  to  be  represen 
tative  of  fine  distinctions. 

He  felt  that  Percy,  at  an  early  age,  should  have  grasped 
this  in  the  writing  of  the  poetic  tasks  set  before  him. 

"Everything  in  the  Cosmic  order,"  he  said,  "is  perfect 
or  complete.  When  I  speak  of  the  Time  Chorus,  I  mean 
that  which  voices  the  accomplishment  of  the  past.  .  .  .  The 


PERCY   MACKAYE    AND    HIS    FATHER    151 

Past  Time  Chorus,  philosophically,  represents  the  real  world, 
and  the  Future  Time  Chorus  represents  the  ideal  world, 
while  the  Eternity  Chorus  represents  the  essential  world  — 
the  world  of  principle  or  spirit.  .  .  .  The  spirit  of  the  whole 
is  the  perfect  spirit  —  universal  spirit  —  the  divine  spirit. 
The  spirit  of  the  past  is  the  imperfect  spirit  and  the  de 
moniac  spirit." 

His  distinctions  of  mortal  and  immortal  consciousness 
clearly  mark  his  scattered  reading  in  metaphysical  fields. 

We  now  reach  the  culmination  of  Mr.  Mackaye's  life,  at 
the  time  of  the  Chicago  Exposition  of  1893.  All  his  theatri 
cal  extravagance  overflowed  and  ran  riot  in  the  Columbian 
Celebration  Company,  organized  to  exploit  his  Spectatorium, 
a  building  devised  for  his  entertainment,  which  was  called 
"  Spectatorus."  This  was  a  combination  of  grand  scenic  dis 
play  with  Oratorio,  in  which  stage  realism  was  to  be  carried 
to  its  highest  perfection.  It  was  to  be  a  Hippodrome  in 
size,  with  appliances  of  every  conceivable  power,  so  arranged 
as  to  create  illusions  of  the  noblest  order.  The  stage,  called 
a  "  Scenitorium",  was  to  contain  an  immense  reservoir  for 
water  effects,  and  around  this  were  to  be  grouped  Mac 
kaye's  remarkable  inventions. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  details  regarding  this  mam 
moth  shell.  In  it  were  to  be  erected  automatic  combination 
stages,  allowing  of  any  variety  of  motions;  wave-current 
makers,  for  the  creation  of  currents  of  water  which  were  to 
be  regulated  as  to  velocity  and  height;  wind-current  makers, 
so  conceived  as  to  create  cyclone  velocity  from  the  gentlest 
breeze;  weather-makers,  for  atmospheric  effects,  such  as 
large  rainbows;  illurninoscopes,  "by  means  of  which  the 
scope  and  character  of  the  illumination  of  the  scene  can  be 
instantly  determined;"  colorators,  for  tints  according  to 
the  changing  hours;  nebulators,  for  cloud  effects;  and  a 
luxauleator,  which  was  to  be  a  dazzling  sheet  of  light  to  take 


152  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

the  place  of  a  curtain.  Examining  the  large  scope  of  Mack- 
aye's  idea,  it  is  surprising  how  near  he  came  to  the  concep 
tion  of  a  Hippodrome.  He  aimed  at  mechanical  duplication 
of  Nature;  mechanical  acceleration  of  mystery.  The  pro 
duction  in  such  a  huge  machinery  was  to  be  called  a  "  Spec- 
tatorio,"  which  was  "a  species  of  performance  celebrating  a 
theme  which  may  be  either  historic,  fabulous,  or  fanciful.  It 
illustrates  its  subjects  by  great  pictures  —  whose  stories 
are  told  in  pantomime,  and  whose  sentimental,  ethical,  or 
ideal  meaning  is  celebrated  or  interpreted  by  music."  On 
one  hand  he  had  in  mind  the  most  extravagant  display  of 
Barnum;  on  the  other  he  accepted  as  a  model  Cody's  Wild 
West  Show.  Undoubtedly  the  educational  vastness  of  such 
an  enterprise  met  with  some  enthusiasm  and  support;  prep 
arations  actually  began  for  the  mounting  of  "The  Great 
Discovery,"  which  was  to  epitomize  the  life  of  Columbus. 
The  financial  figures  of  returns  were  chimerical,  with 
the  seating  capacity  of  over  ten  thousand  people,  and  the 
other  sources  of  income  to  cover  the  initial  expenditure  of 
nearly  a  million  dollars.  The  structure  was  to  have  occu 
pied  the  northeastern  corner  of  Jackson  Park. 

Any  one  in  the  theatre  will  understand  that  the  very 
magnitude  of  the  undertaking  was  enough  to  handicap 
business  and  to  kill  the  man  in  control.  Mackaye's  whole 
nervous  system  went  to  pieces  as  he  saw  the  money  slipping 
from  his  hands.  The  Spectatorium  was  only  a  skeleton 
when  the  company  went  into  the  hands  of  a  receiver  because 
of  depression  in  Wall  Street.  His  brain  teeming  with  projects, 
Mackaye  was  able,  through  a  natural  gift  of  persuasiveness, 
to  carry  any  amount  of  enthusiasm.  But  now  he  was  com 
pletely  broken  in  health.  He  was  given  a  benefit  which  en 
abled  him  to  start  on  a  trip  to  California,  but  on  his  way, 
while  passing  through  Timpas,  Colorado,  he  died  aboard 
the  train,  on  February  25,  1894. 


PERCY   MACKAYE    AND    HIS    FATHER    153 

In  this  career  we  find  many  evidences  of  the  son,  Percy, 
writer  of  dramas;  of  the  son,  James,  instructor  at  Harvard, 
and  author  of  a  philosophical,  sociological  discussion  of  "  The 
Economy  of  Happiness";  and  of  the  son  whose  interest  in 
nature  is  marked.1  The  speculative  tendency  is  in  the 
Mackaye  blood,  and  a  staid  seriousness.  Yet  Percy  has  a 
keen  sense  of  humor  which  he  realized  in  "Mater"  and  in 
"Anti-Matrimony,"  but  sedulously  governs  because  of  his 
Harvard  training.  Steele  Mackaye,  in  his  experiments, 
foreshadowed  the  present  possibilities  of  the  mechanical 
stage;  he  would  have  been  greater  had  he  possessed  re 
straint.  Curiously,  his  son,  Percy,  is  handicapped  by  this 
very  quality  of  restraint. 

1  There  was  also  a  son  whose  stage  career  was  cut  short.  A 
daughter,  Hazel,  has  been  on  the  stage.  Mrs.  Steele  Mackaye  is 
the  author  of  several  dramatizations  which  have  been  published. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE  CARDBOARD   PLAY   AND   THE  WELL-MADE   PLAY: 
AUGUSTUS   THOMAS   AND   WILLIAM    GILLETTE 


THERE  is  no  strict  grievance  against  the  outward  excellence 
of  the  cardboard  play.  It  is  planned  according  to  the  latest 
devices,  and  its  structure  is  pleasing  to  the  eye.  Yet  it  is 
like  a  house  untenanted,  like  a  shell  without  the  kernel. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  drama  be  externalized, 
that  its  scenes  be  proportioned  and  in  good  taste.  But  this 
does  not  mean  that  the  yard-stick  measurements  of  the 
average  manager  are  sufficient  to  guarantee  a  success  in 
his  theatre.  Every  play  is  subjected  to  the  same  processes 
of  preparation;  the  extravaganza  as  well  as  the  problem 
drama  has  its  scene  and  its  costume;  and  every  play,  what 
ever  its  scope  or  character,  has  to  be  rehearsed. 

In  mounting  a  comic  opera,  the  stage  manager  is  chiefly 
concerned  with  pleasing  the  eye;  the  attention  is  here 
carried  in  channels  of  least  mental  exertion.  In  the  final 
analysis  of  any  effect  created  in  this  manner,  audiences 
feel  that  they  have  been  cheated,  since  the  light  and  paint 
of  the  stage  are  only  accessories,  veritable  appetizers  for  the 
imagination,  and  do  not  take  the  place  of  nature.  The 
Rosalind  of  the  boards  lacks  the  fresh  youth  of  the  Rosalind 
of  the  greensward. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  mounting  a  straight  drama,  with 
any  serious  undercurrent  of  motive,  it  is  incumbent  upon 


THOMAS  AND  GILLETTE  155 

the  stage  manager  to  be  particular  about  harmonizing  scene 
with  idea.  He  leaves  this  to  his  working  staff,  more  than 
likely,  thoroughly  content  if,  during  rehearsal,  he  detects  any 
variety  of  design,  any  new  effect  of  novel  action.  A  theatre 
man  once  said  to  me,  not  realizing  the  poignant  truth  of 
his  statement:  "  I  hear  with  my  eyes,  and  see  with  my  ears." 

It  is  not  an  easy  matter  to  balance  consistency  with  action, 
and  it  is  well-nigh  impossible  for  the  dramatist,  if  he  be 
lacking  in  psychological  situation,  to  insert  it  after  his  play 
is  written;  he  is  continually  forced  to  recast  his  dialogue  so 
as  to  make  possible  certain  motives  and  certain  actions. 

From  the  moment  a  dramatic  author  conceives  his  plot, 
to  the  first  night,  he  travels  the  long  road  of  preparation; 
considering  how  long,  it  is  a  wonder  that  more  plays  are  not 
silently  withdrawn  before  they  are  publicly  condemned. 
But  the  theatrical  manager  finds  himself  economically  in 
the  position  of  a  landlord  whose  houses  have  to  be  filled,  and 
the  danger  of  the  situation  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  has  more 
comfortable  theatres  than  he  has  deserving  dramas.  That 
is  why  he  leans  so  heavily  upon  the  cardboard  play.  If  it 
is  weak  on  the  first  night,  it  may  be  bolstered  up  the  next 
morning.  The  manager  and  author  have  had  time  to  watch 
the  effect  of  scenes  and  of  bits  of  dialogue  upon  the  people. 
The  "prompt  copy"  of  every  play  contains  marks  indicating 
where  those  "in  front"  laughed,  where  they  cried,  where 
they  were  confused.  And  then  the  play  is  touched  up,  cut 
here,  or  shifted  and  heightened  there.  I  remember  hearing 
Augustus  Thomas,  during  the  second  night  of  "  Mrs.  Leffing- 
welFs  Boots,"  make  plans  to  change  certain  spots  that  did 
not  seem  quite  "to  get  over  the  foots." 

The  true  dramatic  author  is  always  thoroughly  alive  to 
the  surroundings  of  his  play,  to  the  precise  atmosphere  of 
his  scene.  While  he  leaves  it  to  the  art  of  the  stage  carpenter 
and  of  the  scene  painter  to  perfect  his  mental  picture  in 


156  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

projection,  nevertheless,  in  the  writing  of  his  play  the 
dramatist  allows  atmosphere  to  affect  his  dialogue  as  well 
as  his  action. 

Not  only  details  of  furniture,  of  dress,  of  architecture, 
decorate  the  moment  in  the  story,  but  each  object  of  external 
position  measures  the  temperament  and  the  personality 
of  the  character,  or  group  of  characters,  approaching  the 
climax  of  the  particular  incident  in  life  called  a  drama. 

Clyde  Fitch  read  me  the  script  of  "The  City,"  and 
in  describing  to  me  the  locale,  he  indicated  how  the  trees 
were  placed  on  the  lawn  of  the  country  house;  he  saw  plainly 
the  living-room  in  which  the  tragedy  of  the  first  act  was  to 
take  place.  The  ground-plan  of  the  entire  play  was  as  real 
as  though  he  had  himself  lived  with  his  people.  To  him 
the  essential  fact  was  that  his  family,  which  he  had  chosen 
for  "The  City,"  could  not  possibly  live  in  any  other  kind 
of  house.  He  had  his  scene  built,  he  selected  his  furniture, 
he  clothed  his  actors,  to  satisfy  his  sense  of  environment. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  first  two  things  to  be 
done,  after  a  play  is  chosen  for  production,  are  to  have  the 
stage  director  make  sketches  of  the  scene,  while  the  dram 
atist  —  if  he  be  well  known  —  or  the  stage  manager,  begins 
to  "cast"  the  characters.  Mr.  Fitch  always  personally 
superintended  these  details.  Compare  a  preparatory  sketch 
of  scenes  for  "The  Music  Master"  with  the  scene  finally 
adopted,  after  Mr.  Belaseo's  practical  alterations.  That 
which  was  taken  from  the  original  sketch  had  to  be  dis 
carded  for  purposes  of  stagecraft.  Nothing  is  done  toward 
actually  building  the  scenery  for  a  play  until  the  sketches 
have  been  approved,  and  until  the  "model"  has  been  con 
structed.  Then  the  carpenter  and  painter  are  allowed  to 
begin  their  work. 

The  preliminary  drawings  made  for  a  production  include 
costume  sketches  of  varied  design  and  color.  Even  as  an 


THOMAS  AND  GILLETTE  157 

artist  or  a  sculptor  makes  diverse  outlines  of  arms,  and 
eyes,  and  noses,  so  the  costumer  prepares  "  boot  plots,"  "  fan 
plots,"  and  studies  out  carefully,  if  his  play  calls  for  archaic 
setting,  every  detail  relating  to  the  dress  of  his  period. 

From  an  orchestra  chair,  one  does  not  fully  realize  the 
amount  of  ingenuity  required  in  preparing  the  cardboard 
surroundings  for  an  historical,  a  fantastical,  or  a  romantic 
play.  Dances  peculiar  to  locality,  as  in  Mary  Austin's 
"The  Arrow  Maker,"  or  in  Richard  Walton  Tully's  "The 
Rose  of  the  Rancho,"  or  in  Victor  Herbert's  "Natoma," 
have  to  be  worked  out  by  diagram.  Colors  have  to  be  massed 
and  harmonized,  and  characters  have  to  be  kept  within  the 
tone  of  the  picture.  When  large  choruses  are  used,  the  care 
in  such  detail  must  be  constant.  The  Hippodrome  always 
makes  use  of  immense  ballets,  where,  if  one  but  half  close 
his  eyes,  blurring  the  individuals,  a  spectrum-scheme  of  the 
whole  is  observed.  Masses  of  color  are  circulated  in  well- 
conceived,  sinuous  design  —  geometry  turned  into  the  poetry 
of  motion. 

The  cardboard  aspects  of  a  play  are  in  the  hands  of  four 
men:  the  scene  painter,  the  stage  carpenter,  the  electrician 
and  the  property  man.  Each  at  first  does  his  work  sepa 
rately,  but  in  such  a  way  that  when  all  come  together,  their 
"effects"  dovetail.  The  mounting  of  a  play  is  much  like 
a  cut-up  puzzle;  there  is  a  very  definite  design  somewhere, 
which  the  stage  manager  has  in  mind.  Even  in  the  acting  of 
a  play,  rehearsals  are  conducted  in  fragments,  the  players  go 
ing  off  to  odd  corners  of  the  room  to  discuss  their  "  business," 
while  others  are  doing  a  scene  under  the  direct  supervision 
of  the  dramatist.  Mr.  Fitch  was  an  indefatigable  worker 
at  rehearsal;  Mr.  Thomas  possesses  the  happy  faculty  of 
keeping  the  actors  interested. 

The  play  is  practically  rehearsed  by  the  time  scenery 
and  costumes  are  ready;  the  actors  are  "letter  perfect,"  and 


158  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

are  fairly  familiar  with  the  "  properties  "  which  they  are 
going  to  use.  Up  to  this  time,  the  king  has  probably  sat 
upon  a  kitchen  chair  for  his  throne;  the  princess  has  dropped 
upon  the  bare  boards  of  the  dusty  stage  for  the  greensward; 
while  the  retainers  of  the  palace  have  had  a  veritable 
Belshazzar's  feast,  without  even  the  assistance  of  papier 
mache  venison.  I  attended  several  rehearsals  of  "  Pelleas  et 
Melisande,"  when  Oscar  Hammerstein  was  preparing 
Debussy's  opera.  In  the  balcony  scene,  Melisande,  dressed 
in  a  street  gown,  with  a  toque,  made  believe  she  was 
shaking  out  her  golden  locks;  while  up  an  ordinary  house 
ladder  climbed  the  love-consumed  Pelleas,  in  a  brown  frock 
coat  and  derby  hat!  It  is  at  such  moments  that  all  arguments 
as  to  the  need  of  scenery  and  costume  are  difficult  to  offset 
with  any  plea  for  not  needing  scenery  at  all.  It  has  its  legit 
imate  uses;  its  undoing  is  bad  taste,  which  leads  to  repletion. 

The  theatre  people  do  not  proceed  blindly  in  their  building 
of  the  cardboard  play;  while  they  are  usually  lavish  in  their 
scenic  scope,  they  know  what  they  want  before  they  look 
for  it;  it  may  not  be  the  right  thing,  or  the  most  artistic 
thing,  but  it  suits  their  limited  purposes.  They  are  quicker 
to  discover  a  flaw  in  stage-setting  than  to  question  the  in 
tellectual  value  of  their  amusement;  hence,  their  visual 
power  far  exceeds  their  critical  judgment.  They  usually 
possess  a  "scenario"  knowledge  of  the  play,  which  they 
apply  to  their  "stage  model,"  in  which  draperies,  furniture, 
ornaments,  and  those  numberless  details  grouped  under 
the  name  of  "properties,"  are  accurately  placed.  One  can 
imagine  the  necessity  for  this  doll  house,  this  facsimile  of 
the  larger  thing,  this  miniature  theatre.  But  the  mental 
measurement  of  the  cardboard  play  goes  no  further,  as  far 
as  the  average  manager  is  concerned. 

The  perfection  to  which  the  cardboard  play  has  been 
brought  is  at  once  its  asset  and  its  weakness.  It  is  so  easy 


THOMAS  AND  GILLETTE  159 

to  interest  the  eye  with  devices,  that  the  manager  has  reached 
the  point  where  he  can  disguise  a  threadbare  plot  beneath 
mechanical  novelty.  No  criticism  can  be  brought  against 
the  manager  that  he  is  miserly  in  his  outlay  for  an  "  attrac 
tion."  Fortunes  are  spent  every  year  in  the  cardboard 
houses,  which  amuse  the  eye  but  which  bring  no  profit  to 
the  mind  or  imagination.  To  judge  by  the  character  of 
plays  produced  in  a  season,  the  professional  "reader"  for 
a  theatre  watches  more  for  effect  than  for  content.  Depend 
ence  is  placed,  not  so  much  on  the  dramatist  as  on  the  theatre 
staff  of  trained  mechanics.  The  danger  to  the  American 
playwright,  which  lurks  in  this  dependence,  is  that  he  trans 
fers  his  psychological  values  from  character  to  scene. 

Undoubtedly  there  is  art  in  the  external  drama,  but  its 
perfection  is  the  danger  we  have  to  guard  against.  Com 
mercialization  will  exist  in  this  phase,  just  as  long  as  the 
period  of  preparation  is  spent  on  "effect."  For  on  the  first 
night,  with  the  scene  set,  the  lights  lit,  the  "properties" 
placed,  and  the  actors  at  work,  the  manager  is  often  forced 
to  realize  too  late  that  he  has  no  play. 


II 

Clyde  Fitch  possessed  ingenuity;  so  does  Augustus 
Thomas.  Clyde  Fitch  depended  very  largely  on  external 
detail,  as  in  "Girls";  Augustus  Thomas  piled  up  eccentric 
marks  to  such  an  extent  in  "The  Other  Girl"  that  persons 
who  did  not  know  Broadway  could  not  understand  it.  In 
"  The  City,"  Mr.  Fitch  proved,  just  before  his  death,  that  he 
could  handle  a  powerful  theme,  however  disagreeable;  in 
"The  Witching  Hour"  and  subsequent  dramas,  Mr.  Thomas 
clearly  shows  that  the  cardboard  play  is  no  longer  sufficient 
to  carry  his  new  interests. 

Mr.    Thomas'    early    pieces,    "Alabama"    (1891),    "In 


160  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

'Mizzoura'"  (1893),  and  "Arizona"  (1900)  dealt  with  a  life 
which  stirred  with  something  more  than  smart-set  witticism 
and  city  environment.  Then  followed  a  period  when  French 
technique  gripped  him,  and  he  has  never  escaped  his  in 
debtedness  to  the  foreign  facility  for  making  conversation. 
His  broad  comedy  period  encouraged  him  to  draw  upon  his 
newspaper  observation,  and  to  produce  plays  deliciously  clever 
but  effervescent. 

Most  of  his  plots  were  fragile,  slender  threads  of  experience 
to  carry  his  fine  sense  of  humor.  "  Mrs.  Leffingwell's  Boots  " 
(1905)  is  an  apt  example  of  this.  On  the  other  hand,  "The 
Earl  of  Pawtucket"  (1903),  a  Dundreary  and  Chumley 
imitation,  and  "On  the  Quiet"  (1901)  proved  to  be  farces 
of  excellent  pattern.  Meeting  success  with  the  former, 
through  the  acting  success  of  Lawrence  D'Orsay,  Thomas 
produced  another  play,  "The  Embassy  Ball"  (1905),  scin 
tillating  but  flimsy,  a  species  of  wit  which  in  no  way 
touched  the  heart,  and  unhappily  distorted  American 
types. 

Mr.  Thomas  has  technique  at  his  finger's  end;  he  is  a  man 
of  the  world,  with  a  reporter's  instinct  for  timely  interests. 
As  all  dramatists  should  be,  he  is  thoroughly  familiar  with 
American  life,  and  since  his  broad  comedy  period,  his  obser 
vation  and  his  thought  have  deepened.  Born  in  St.  Louis, 
Mo.,  on  January  8,  1859,1  he  was  public-school  bred;  became 
page-boy  in  Washington  during  the  Forty-first  Congress; 
studied  law;  became  a  writer  and  illustrator  for  such  papers 
as  the  St.  Louis  Post-Dispatch,  the  St.  Louis  Republic,  the 
Kansas  City  Times,  the  Kansas  City  Minor  (1886),  the 
Northwestern  Miller,  and  the  New  York  World.  Six  years 
were  passed  in  the  freight  department  of  a  railroad,  and  with 

1  See  Dithmar,  "Augustus  Thomas,"  Bookbuyer,  May,  1898, 
16:323;  "  Hoosier  Doctor,"  Critic,  N.  s.,  27:286;  "  The  Meddler," 
Critic,  N.  s.,  30:297. 


AUGUSTUS  THOMAS 


THOMAS  AND  GILLETTE  161 

his  knowledge  of  law  he  made  ready  to  enter  politics.    His 
interest  in  the  latter  is  constantly  manifest. 

His  debut  as  dramatist  was  made  when,  in  1887,  he  dram 
atized  Mrs.  F.  H.  Burnett's  "Editha's  Burglar"  and  also 
acted  in  it.  Before  this,  as  early  as  sixteen,  he  wrote  plays 
like  "Alone"  and  "A  Big  Rise,"  for  amateurs.1 

Mr.  Thomas  is  the  author  of  three  plays  that,  while  they 
show  the  technique  for  which  he  is  justly  noted,  likewise 
sound  an  interest  in  telepathy.  These  are  "The  Witching 
Hour"  (1908),  a  manuscript  which  he  had  held  for  ten  years, 
until  the  time  was  opportune;  "The  Harvest  Moon"  (1909), 
and  "As  a  Man  Thinks"  (1911).  In  "The  Witching 
Hour  "  a  psychology  of  suggestion,  of  intimidation,  is  devel-  ^ 
oped  with  more  consistency  and  with  equally  as  much  dra-  7 
matic  effectiveness  as  in  Charles  Klein's  "The  Third  Degree." 
"The  Harvest  Moon,"  while  not  as  interesting  a  plot,  serves 
further  to  convince  one  of  the  belief  in  Thomas's  sincere 
interest  in  subconscious  effect.  His  science  is  rudimentary; 
his  exposition  such  as  a  man  who  had  seen  these  phenomena 
would  describe  them.  But  none  the  less  are  they  interesting, 
and  dramaticajlv^effective.  Some  may  say  that  Mr.  Thomas's 

1  A  full  list  of  Mr.  Thomas's  plays  would  include  "A  Man  of 
the  World"  (1889);  "Reckless  Temple"  (1890);  "Afterthoughts" 
(1890);  dramatization  of  F.  Hopkinson  Smith's  "Colonel  Carter 
of  Cartersville"  (1892);  "The  Capitol"  (1894);  "New  Blood" 
(1894);  "The  Man  Upstairs"  (1895);  "The  Overcoat"  (1898); 
"The  Hoosier  Doctor"  (1898);  "The  Meddler"  (1898);  "Oliver 
Goldsmith"  (1900);  "Colorado"  (1901);  "Soldiers  of  Fortune" 
(1902);  "The  Education  of  Mr.  Pipp"  (1903),  based  on  Gibson's 
pictures;  and  "De  Lancey"  (1905).  On  a  souvenir  program  for  a 
special  performance  of  "The  Harvest  Moon,"  given  on  Oct.  28, 
1909,  for  the  Ancient  Accepted  Scottish  Rite,  of  which  Mr.  Thomas 
is  a  member,  I  note  these  additional  plays:  "The  Burglar,"  "A 
Night's  Frolic,"  "A  New  Year's  Call,"  "Surrender,"  "For  Money," 
"A  Proper  Impropriety,"  "The  Music  Box,"  "Chimmie  Fadden," 
"The  Jucklins,"  "That  Overcoat,"  "The  Ranger."  I  have  seen 
casual  reference  to  "In  Illinoy"  and  "Don't  Tell  Her  Husband." 


162  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

attitude  toward  the  theatre  is  unscholastic;  but  if  we  stop 
to  think,  the  theatre  is  never  scholastic;  it  rises  upon  the 
popular  interests  of  the  people.  It  is  not  necessary  for  a 
drama  success  to  be  literature.  I  remember  Mr.  Thomas 
summing  up  a  few  of  his  plays  in  this  fashion: 

"'Alabama/  if  it  were  produced  now,  would  have  no 
special  audience  or  following.  It  came  at  a  time,  however, 
when  the  country  was  tired  of  sectional  strife,  and  when  it 
believed  there  should  be  a  reconciliation.  Colonel  Henry 
Watterson  said,  in  two  public  speeches,  and  also  editorially, 
that  up  to  the  time  of  the  production  of  '  Alabama/  he  had 
had  no  assistance  of  any  kind  to  bring  about  this  reconcil 
iation  between  the  sections,  and  that  'Alabama'  did  more 
in  one  night  than  he  had  been  able  to  do  in  ten  years. 

"'Arizona',"  he  continued,  "was  played  just  at  the  time 
of  the  Spanish  War,  and  had  to  do  with  the  raising  of  a 
volunteer  regiment  —  young  men  going  to  the  front. 

"'The  Other  Girl'  was  popular  when  the  prize  fighter 
was  an  idol  in  New  York,  just  after  the  repeal  of  the  Horton 
Law.  '  The  Witching  Hour '  is  a  seizure  of  the  general  atten 
tion  that  is  given  to  telepathy  and  allied  topics.  And  under 
all  that,  lies  my  own  theory,  expressed  on  more  than  one 
occasion,  that  the  theatre  is  a  place  for  the  visualizing  of 
ideas  —  that  the  theatre  is  vital  only  when  it  is  visualizing 
some  idea  then  and  at  the  time  in  the  public  mind.  The 
theatre  is  a  vital  part  of  everyday  life;  it  is  an  institution, 
and  as  an  institution  it  has  a  claim  upon  the  popular  at 
tention  principally  in  that  fact.  When  it  becomes  a  thing 
preservative,  a  museum  for  certain  literary  forms,  or  a 
laboratory  for  galvanizing  archaic  ideas,  it  is  almost  use 
less,  and  seldom  successful,  as  a  business  enterprise." 

In  "  As  a  Man  Thinks,"  Sir.  Thomas's  vision  is  no  longer 
fragmentary.  Once  he  used  to  read  his  papers  too  assidu 
ously,  but  now  he  has  added  to  this  a  wider  culture  and  a 


THOMAS  AND  GILLETTE  163 

deeper  understanding.  The  organic  unity  is  purely  intel 
lectual,  yet  his  dialogue  is  so  excellently  constructed  that 
one  does  not  realize  how  many  problems  he  drops  at  will, 
attacking  the  next  with  equal  vigor  and  freshness.  The 
interesting  point  to  note  about  Mr.  Thomas's  telepathic 
dramas  is  that  he  not  alone  states  a  problem;  in  addition, 
he  assumes  an  attitude.  This  is  why  "  As  a  Man  Thinks  " 
is  invigorating. 

Where  Mr.  Thomas  has  grown  is  in  the  manifold  variety 
of  his  statements;  in  the  digested,  rather  than  in  the  re 
flected,  opinions  he  expresses.  "As  a  Man  Thinks"  should 
easily  win  its  way  on  the  Continent;  by  its  French  technique 
it  should  be  an  example  to  Henri  Bernstein.  But  notwith 
standing,  it  has,  in  its  last  act  —  which  is  a  play  in  itself  — 
what  the  American  people  epitomize  as  "uplift."  The  title 
of  this  play  is  simply  a  variation  of  the  biblical  phrasing, 
"  As  ye  sow,  so  shall  ye  reap."  The  play  itself  has  no  single 
purpose,  but  on  the  other  hand  it  has  no  indefinite  suggest- 
iveness. 

Never  has  Mr.  Thomas  dipped  his  ladle  into  the  crucible 
of  life  with  more  effect;  never  has  he  had  surer  grip  of  the 
handle.  As  a  man  thinks,  so  are  his  plays.  There  is  every 
evidence  in  this  latest  one  (1911)  that  Mr.  Thomas  is  think 
ing.  And  because  of  that,  he  has  ceased  placing  so  much 
dependence  upon  the  cardboard  house.  His  dramas  are  \ 
always  well  mounted;  they  always  contain  atmosphere  in 
their  scenes ;  they  are  always  well  dressed  and  well  acted. 
But  there  is  something  beyond  the  witticism  of  lines  in 
Thomas  of  the  present  period.  He  has  the  same  brilliancy, 
but  he  also  possesses  dignity  and  seriousness.  His  next 
play  may  contain  authority.  That  is  the  direction  of  his 
growth. 


164  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 


III 

William  Gillette  is  another  American  dramatist  who  is 
master  of  the  well-made  play  —  a  species  that  involves 
the  cardboard  characteristics  used  with  reticence.  He  was 
born  in  Hartford,  Conn.,  on  July  24,  1855,1  his  family  lineage 
comprising  many  noted  names.  His  father  was  at  one  time 
United  States  Senator  and  a  man  of  keen  intellect;  among 
his  relatives  he  counts  Henry  Ward  Beecher  and  Charles 
Dudley  Warner.  Young  Gillette's  education  was  carefully 
conducted.  It  seems  that  as  far  back  as  nursery  days,  the 
boy  owned  his  miniature  theatre,  and  was  quick  in  his  me 
chanical  inventions.  Thus  equipped,  Gillette,  as  early  as 
1877,  had  received  a  certain  amount  of  theatrical  training. 

It  is  the  primary  object  of  every  dramatist  to  amuse  an 
audience.  It  is  the  primary  object  of  every  audience  to  seek 
amusement.  But  there  are  standards  of  pleasure  as  there 
are  standards  of  morality,  and  we  have  to  question  our  right 
to  enjoy,  as  we  question  our  right  to  live.  Amusement 
varies  with  the  type  of  play,  and  this  type  varies  with  the 
grade  of  playhouse. 

Now,  it  is  the  primary  object  of  William  Gillette  to  amuse, 
and  every  audience  that  he  draws  is  given  healthy  amuse 
ment.  His  standard  of  pleasure  is  simple:  to  hold  the 
attention  by  appealing  to  a  childlike  thirst  in  all  of  us  for 
a  story  and  for  excitement.  His  types  of  play  are  so  varied 
that  we  find  different  pleasure  in  "The  Private  Secretary" 
from  that  in  "Secret  Service."  Only  once  did  Mr.  Gillette 
approach  a  problem;  that  was  in  "The  Admirable  Crichton" 
which  J.  M.  Barrie  wrote.  As  a  dramatist  himself,  Mr. 

1  The  Green  Room  Book  states  1856.  He  was  educated  at  Yale 
and  Harvard,  and  the  Massachusetts  Fine  Arts  Institute.  He  made 
his  first  appearance  as  an  actor  in  1875.  In  1881,  he  wrote  "The 
Professor." 


THOMAS  AND  GILLETTE  165 

Gillette  has  never  had  any  other  purpose  than  to  amuse;  and  he 
has  reached  his  effects  through  farce  and  melodrama.  These 
two  elements  have  been  raised  to  the  highest  grade  through 
superlative  workmanship ;  they  have  been  found  appropriate 
for  the  best  audiences  because  of  the  stage  management 
and  the  peculiarly  individualistic  acting  of  Mr.  Gillette. 
"Sherlock  Holmes"  (1899)  is  example  of  a  rousing  melo 
drama,  constructed  in  harmony  with  his  method  of  acting. 

Joseph  Jefferson  once  said  that  he  had  no  set  ambition 
to  uplift  the  stage,  and  in  consequence  his  memory  is  sweet 
rather  than  invigorating.  William  Gillette  has  claimed 
that  he  cares  nothing  for  critical  theories;  that  when  he 
has  reached  the  heart  of  the  masses,  he  knows  he  is  right. 
He  does  not  seek  to  prove  any  problem.  But  as  a  dramatist, 
he  has  been  able  to  demonstrate  that  neither  farce  nor 
melodrama  needs  to  sacrifice  the  essential  qualities  of 
humanity. 

In  "The  Private  Secretary  "  there  is  a  lovable  atmosphere 
surrounding  the  diffident  minister,  no  matter  how  ridicu 
lous  the  positions  in  which  he  is  placed.  Throughout  "  Sher 
lock  Holmes,"  the  great  detective  and  Dr.  Watson  are 
forceful  characters,  apart  from  the  situations  of  force  through 
which  they  make  their  appeal.  There  is  no  doubt  in  my 
mind  as  to  how  much  of  this  is  due  to  William  Gillette, 
the  actor.  These  roles,  which  have  made  his  stage  career, 
have  themselves  been  made  by  his  method  of  acting  —  tense, 
mostly  silent,  persistently  dominant,  and,  as  Norman  Hap- 
good  once  wrote,  deeply  theatrical  and  stealthy.  Upon 
the  stage  he  is  quiet,  slow,  dignified;  his  style  is  one  of 
nervous  repression,  of  dry  humor  that  is  incisive  and  subtle. 
Such  slowness,  in  the  midst  of  rapid  action,  of  tense  situ 
ation,  is  peculiar  to  this  actor  alone. 

Mr.  Gillette  has  written  many  plays  since  he  began  his 
career  as  dramatist  in  1881.  There  were  divers  failures 


166  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

between  successes;  his  last  indiscretion  —  "Electricity" 
(1910)  —  aiming  to  be  a  vehicle  for  so  slight  an  actress  as 
Marie  Doro,  was  totally  lacking  in  brilliancy  or  in  deftness 
of  workmanship;  it  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  card 
board  play  of  the  commercial  type. 

With  the  aid  of  Mrs.  F.  H.  Burnett,  beginning  as  Thomas 
began,  he  wrote  "  Esmeralda"  in  1881  j1  he  adapted  "  Digby's 
Secretary"  from  the  German  (1884),  and  "She"  from  Rider 
Haggard's  novel  (1887).  From  the  French  and  German 
he  took  many  situations.  But  he  could  so  transmute  ideas 
as  to  make  "Because  She  Loved  Him  So"  (1899)  and  "Sher 
lock  Holmes"  essentially  his  own,  even  though  the  former 
was  taken  from  the  French,  and  the  latter  from  Sir  Conan 
Doyle's  stories.  Some  say  even  that  "  The  Private  Secretary  " 
lurks  on  the  German  stage.  As  examples  of  his  own  origi 
nality,  therefore,  we  have  to  turn  to  "  Held  by  the  Enemy " 
(1886),  "Too  Much  Johnson"  (1894),  "Secret  Service" 
(1896),  and  "Clarice"  (1905). 

There  is  no  system  in  Gillette,  the  dramatist;  in  this  re-, 
spect  he  is  much  more  difficult  to  characterize  than  as  an 
actor.  For  if  we  say  that  his  dramas  represent  "  well-made  " 
plays,  we  attribute  to  them  an  artificiality  which  is  usually 
attributable  to  Scribe.  Were  I  to  measure  the  dramatist 
by  "  The  Private  Secretary,"  I  should  claim  that  while  it  was 
loosely  strung  and  faithfully  modelled  along  conventional  lines 
of  farce,  at  least  it  was  excellently  illustrative  of  the  genre. 
Were  I  to  measure  him  by  "  Held  by  the  Enemy,"  I  should 
call  it  typical  melodrama,  which  had  just  failed  in  its  aim  for 
consistency  and  truth,  even  though  it  foreshadowed  a  better 

1  Among  other  plays  by  Mr.  Gillette,  may  be  mentioned  "A 
Legal  Wreck"  (1888);  "All  the  Comforts  of  Home"  (1890,  from 
the  German);  "Mr.  Wilkinson's  Widows"  (1891);  "Settled  Out 
of  Court"  (1892,  from  the  French);  "Ninety  Days"  (1893).  He 
also  wrote  a  one-act  piece,  "The  Painful  Predicament  of  Sherlock 
Holmes"  (1905). 


WILLIAM  GILLETTE 


THOMAS  AND  GILLETTE  167 

drama  and  reflected  in  the  war  correspondent  something 
of  the  "Private  Secretary."  "Secret  Service"  has  all  the 
tone  and  color  of  Southern  feeling  during  the  Civil  War; 
atmospherically  it  holds  all  the  stress  and  strain.  South 
erners,  treasuring  memories  of  the  sectional  struggle,  have 
succumbed  to  its  appeal.  Mr.  Herne's  "Griffith  Davenport" 
alone  can  be  compared  with  it;  by  its  side,  Bronson  How 
ard's  "Shenandoah"  is  stagey. 

In  these  sophisticated  days,  audiences  are  looking  for 
motives,  for  powerful  scenes,  for  emotional  psychology. 
From  the  motive  standpoint,  Mr.  Gillette  might  have  been 
led  to  write  a  play  of  purpose,  after  appearing  in  "The 
Admirable  Crichton"  —  one  of  the  most  delightful  of 
speculative  satires.  But  he  was  content  to  amuse  himself 
with  the  character  of  the  Butler,  a  role  which  fitted  exactly 
into  the  eccentricities  of  Mr.  Gillette,  the  actor.  Once 
he  allowed  himself  to  stretch  beyond  his  limitations,  and 
in  his  own  adaptation  of  Bernstein's  "Samson,"  he  entered 
the  realm  of  emotion.  But  he  is  distinctively  unemotional. 
Even  in  simple  love  scenes,  such  as  one  finds  in  "Secret 
Service"  and  in  "Clarice,"  he  makes  appeal  through  the 
sentiment  of  situation,  through  the  exquisite  sensitiveness 
of  outward  detail,  rather  than  through  romantic  attitude 
and  heart  fervor. 

It  has  gone  against  the  grain  for  Mr.  Gillette  to  be  purpose 
ful;  one  would  think  that  this  might  lead  to  his  being  pro 
lific.  But  Mr.  Gillette  is  the  most  cautious  of  dramatists. 
Fundamentally,  he  is  right  regarding  his  belief  that  audiences 
wish  to  be  amused.  Life  has  enough  worries  without  going 
to  the  theatre  to  be  worried.  Therefore,  he  turns  on  green 
lights  in  "Sherlock  Holmes"  —  the  same  green  lights  that 
illuminate  the  page  of  "Ragged  Dick"  —  and  people  who 
have  patronized  Ibsen's  "The  Wild  Duck"  and  "Rosmers- 
holm,"  sit  enthralled.  He  dramatizes  a  cigar  in  "Secret 


168  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Service"  and  in  "Sherlock  Holmes,"  using  it  also  to  effect 
in  Barriers  "The  Admirable  Crichton."  As  a  dramatist, 
Mr.  Gillette  has  done  much  to  prove  the  legitimacy  of 
melodrama;  he  has  demonstrated  that  violence  alone  in  art 
separates  Broadway  from  the  Bowery. 

Mr.  Gillette  and  Mr.  Thomas  are  the  only  ones  of  our 
living  dramatists  who  have  successfully  demonstrated  that 
the  cardboard  play  does  not  have  to  be  shallow;  that  it  is, 
in  fact,  a  virtue  when  its  organism  is  understood  and  is  not 
over-worked.  For  no  matter  how  subtle  an  idea,  the  play 
is  a  concrete  thing. 


CHAPTER  X 

CONCERNING  CLYDE  FITCH  AND  THE  LOCAL  SENSE 

THERE  are  three  important  elements  involved  in  the  writ 
ing  of  a  play:  the  sense  of  situation,  the  sense  of  character 
ization,  and  the  sense  of  dialogue.  If  regarded  in  the  light 
of  recent  stagecraft,  it  will"Be  seen  that  no  matter  what 
the  type  of  play  may  be,  no  matter  what  the  problem  of  the 
play  may  be,  the  infinite  ramifications  found  in  a  perfectly 
constructed  drama  are  usually  gathered  together  under 
these  three  fundamental  heads.  Our  American  dramatist 
has  to  a  very  commendable  and  remarkable  degree  mastered 
within  recent  years  two  of  these  characteristics.  Living 
in  an  atmosphere  where  situation  dominates  every  corner 
of  our  national  existence,  it  is  not  strange  that  his  eye  should 
be  trained  to  catch  the  essentials  of  the  moment.  This  quick 
ness  on  his  part  is  due  not  only  to  inherited  tendencies,  but 
to  training  as  well. 

Moreover,  being  particularly  keen  as  to  the  how  and  the 
wherefore,  rather  than  the  why,  the  American  is  prone  to  draw 
from  national  existence  that  which  he  asks  for,  and  to  re 
ceive  answer  from  his  fellows  according  to  the  value,  the 
force  of  the  question  he  puts.  This  modus  operandi  con 
stitutes  the  distinct  school  of  training  in  which  our  American 
playwright  has  thus  far  been  educated. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  the  statement  made  before, 
that  among  our  younger  men  who  are  essaying  the  dramatic 
form  as  a  means  of  expression,  the  larger  number  have  been 


170  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

at  some  period  of  their  careers  engaged  in  newspaper  report 
ing.  What  bearing  has  this  fact  upon  their  workmanship? 
First,  it  has  required  of  the  reporter,  who  is  after  daily  oc 
currences,  to  grasp  the  essential  points  in  a  story,  to  make 
use  only  of  those  factors  which  will  picturesquely  represent 
in  a  rapid  fashion  the  progress  of  a  tragedy  or  the  narration 
of  a  situation.  The  reporter  is  furthermore  required  to  sense 
this  situation  with  his  eye;  his  style  must  be  shaped  so  as 
to  depict  that  process  of  visual  motion.  Color  and  action 
are  his  goal.  The  error  of  his  way  lies  in  his  absolute  ignor 
ing  of  the  logical  sequence  of  events  on  one  hand,  and  in  his 
failure  to  recognize  the  difference  between  relative  and  true 
proportion  on  the  other.  Not  so  very  long  ago,  in  conver 
sation  with  Augustus  Thomas,  I  was  not  surprised  to  find 
him  confessing  that  to  his  newspaper  experience  he  owes 
his  success  as  a  writer  of  dialogue.  To  his  way  of  thinking, 
the  value  of  an  interview  rests  in  the  dexterity  with  which 
the  incisive,  the  irresistible,  the  compelling  question  is  put. 
What,  after  all,  is  drama  but  the  interchange  of  just  this  kind 
of  talk? 

In  England,  Pinero  is  one  of  the  prolific  writers  of  plays. 
I  have  elsewhere  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  had  not 
the  dramatic  instinct  been  uppermost,  Pinero  would  have 
been  a  novelist;  and  this  same  statement  is  true  of  Clyde 
Fitch.  The  man  who  has  the  ability  to  tell  a  story,  and  to 
tell  it  in  an  easy,  interesting  fashion,  possesses  the  art  of 
the  narrator.  But  if  in  addition  he  sees  the  story  in  action, 
he  is  somehow  forced  to  tell  it  in  accordance  with  the  form 
which  action  demands.  In  other  words,  whenever  the  novel 
ist  introduces  into  his  book  an  active  interchange  of  person 
ality  with  personality,  he  is  compelled  to  use  the  very  form 
that  distinguishes  drama;  that  is,  dialogue.  The  playwright 
translates  life  wholly  in  terms  of  action,  in  terms  of  con 
versation,  in  terms  of  situation.  His  idea  must  almost 


Photo,  by  Sarony 


CLYDE  FITCH 


CLYDE  FITCH  AND  THE  LOCAL  SENSE    171 

invariably  be  involved  closely  with  the  effects  of  this  idea 
on  the  characters  of  his  play,  and  on  the  development  of  the 
plot  of  his  play.  This  is  not  saying,  in  reference  to  novel 
writing,  that  we  may  cut  the  dialogue  from  a  book,  and  piece 
it  together,  thus  making  a  play.  This  method  has  been  the 
cause  of  so  many  failures  consequent  upon  the  hasty  dram 
atization  of  novels.  The  essential  structure  of  each  form  is 
different,  and  it  is  this  difference  in  the  framework  of  these 
two  forms  of  art  that  made  Arthur  Wing  Pinero  in  London 
and  Clyde  Fitch  in  New  York,  dramatists  rather  than  novel 
ists. 

The  latter  was  comparatively  a  young  man  at  the  time 
of  his  deaSfTyet  the  body  of  his  work  —  which  never  showed 
abatement  in  its  increasing  proportions  —  is  so  large  as  to 
overcloud  by  its  very  profuseness  the  pleasing  qualities 
which  it  assuredly  has.1  The  gift  of  writing  dialogue  easily, 

1  Mr.  Fitch  was  born  at  Elmira,  New  York,  May[2, 1865;  educated 
at  Amherst  College;  wrote  the  following  plays:  "Beau  Brummel"* 
(1890);  "Betty's  Finish"  (1890);  "Frederic  Lemaltre"  (1890); 
"A  Modern  Match"  (1891,  subsequently  played  as  "Marriage"); 
"Pamela's  Prodigy"  (1891);  "The  Masked  Ball,"  from  the  French 
(1892);  "The  Harvest"  (1893,  which  play,  in  one  act,  was  pre 
sented  before  the  Letters  and  Arts  Club)  [the  plot  was  afterwards 
used  in  "The  Moth  and  the  Flame"];  "A  Shattered  Idol,"  from 
the  French  (1893);  "The  American  Duchess,"  from  the  French 
(1893);  "The  Social  Swim"  (1893);  "Mrs.  Grundy,  Jun.,"  from 
the  French  (1894);  "His  Grace  de  Grammont"  (1894);  "April 
Weather"  (1894);  "Mistress  Betty"  (1895,  subsequently  revised 
and  produced  in  1905  as  "The  Toast  of  the  Town"  f);  "Gos 
sip,"  with  Leo  Ditrichstein  (1895);  "Bohemia,"  from  the  French 
(1896);  "The  Liar,"  from  the  French  (1896);  "A  Superfluous 
Husband,"  with  Leo  Ditrichstein  (1897);  "Nathan  Hale"*  (1898); 
"The  Moth  and  the  Flame"  (1898);  "The  Head  of  the  Family," 
from  the  German,  with  Leo  Ditrichstein  (1898);  "The  Cowboy 
and  the  Lady"  (1899);  "Barbara  Frietchie"*  (1899);  "Sapho," 
from  the  French  (1900);  "The  Climbers "f  (1900);  "Captain  Jinks 
of  the  Horse  Marines"*  (1901);  "Lover's  Lane"  (1901);  "The 
Last  of  the  Dandies"  (1901);  "The  Way  of  the  World"  (1901); 
"The  Girl  and  the  Judge"  (1901);  "The  Marriage  Game,"  from 


172  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

the  excellent  distinction  of  being  endowed  with  a  prolific, 
inventive  talent,  are  sometimes  dangerous,  even  though 
they  may  be  fortunate  qualities  to  own.  If  the  dramatist 
working  at  high  speed  would  only  take  time  to  realize  that 
his  rapidity  of  execution  is  due  solely  to  his  employment 
of  only  two  out  of  the  three  elements  underlying  all  drama, 
the  net  result  of  his  product  would  be  of  more  permanent 
value,  because  he  would  then  become  aware  of  the  fact  that 
he  is  not  making  full  use  of  the  third  element.  The  idea  in  a 
drama  is  the  vital  spot  in  its  construction. 

From  the  time  that  Mr.  Fitch  graduated  from  Amherst 
College,  he  was  actively  engaged  with  his  pen,  beginning 
by  writing  lighter  verse,  and  also  by  working  out  some  prose 
sketches  which  cannot  be  termed  fiction  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word.  "  The  Knighting  of  the  Twins,  and  Ten  Other 
Tales"  (1891),1  is  now  little  known  though  it  contains  most 
charming  delineations  of  child  life.  To  the  student  of  Mr. 

the  French  (1901);  "The  Stubbornness  of  Geraldine"t  (1902); 
"The  Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes"f  (1902);  "The"  Frisky  Mrs. 
Johnson,"  from  the  French  (1903);  "The  Bird  in  the  Cage"  (1903); 
"Algy"  (1903);  "Her  Own  Way"f  (1903);  "Glad  of  It"  (1903); 
"Major  Andr6"  (1903);  "The  Coronet  of  a  Duchess"  (1904); 
"Granny"  (1904);  "Cousin  Billy"  (1904);  "The  Woman  in  the 
Case"  (1904);  "Her  Great  Match"  (1905);  "Wolfville"  (1905); 
"The  Girl  Who  Has  Everything"  (1906);  "Toddles,"  from  the 
French  (1906);  "The  House  of  Mirth,"  with  Mrs.  Wharton  (1906); 
"The  Truth"  (1906);  "The  Straight  Road"  (1906);  "Her  Sister" 
(1907);  "The  Blue  Mouse,"  adapted  from  the  German  (1908); 
"Girls"  (1908);  "A  Happy  Marriage"  (1909);  "The  Bachelor" 
(1909);  "The  City"  (1910).  Mr.  Fitch  died  at  Chal6ns-sur-Marne, 
September  4,  1909.  A  gossipy  account  of  "The  Clyde  Fitch  I 
Knew"  has  been  published  by  Archie  Bell.  Its  chief  excellence  lies 
in  a  few  flashes  of  Mr.  Fitch's  vivacious  personality  and  in  the 
chronology  of  his  work. 

The  plays  marked  thus  (*)  have  been  published;   those  marked 
thus  (t)  belong  to  an  excellent  inexpensive  series  of  Mr.  Fitch's 
plays  which  the  Macmillan  Company  issued. 
i  Republished  (1911). 


CLYDE  FITCH  AND  THE  LOCAL  SENSE    173 

Fitch's  dramas  they  suggest  those  main  characteristics  of  his 
own  attitude  toward  life  and  the  conditions  of  life  which 
dominated  most  of  his  later  stage  work.  For  by  temperament 
Mr.  Fitch  was  a  sentimentalist,  and  because  of  temperament 
he  viewed  the  details  of  environment  in  their  bearing  upon 
feeling. 

Mr.  Fitch  was,  to  a  certain  degree,  also  a  realist,  if  by 
realism  we  mean  the  handling  of  everyday  occurrences  and 
of  the  familiar  natural  problems  of  existence;  but  his  real 
istic  data  was  usually  subjected  to  a  high  light  of  what  at 
one  moment  we  might  term  German  romanticism  and  at 
another  moment  French  sentimentalism.  Much  as  quite 
a  few  of  his  plays  have  been  discussed  from  the  standpoint  of 
their  feminine  suggestiveness  and  from  the  standpoint  of 
their  feminine  sensuous  interests,  in  point  of  morality  Mr. 
Fitch  was  wholly  conventional.  His  cleverness  in  over 
coming  this  conventional  tendency  rested  on  his  theatrical 
employment  of  the  unusual.  In  other  words,  in  point  of 
visual  sense,  Mr.  Fitch's  observation  of  little  things  was 
about  as  sane  as  that  of  any  other  living  dramatist,  his  fault 
being  that  he  failed  to  bring  his  minute  observation  in  re 
lation  with  any  large,  vital,  or  sustained  idea. 

In  1897,  Mr.  Fitch  published  a  little  volume  entitled  "The 
Smart  Set  :  Correspondence  &  Conversations."  It  is  an 
other  example  of  the  insistent  dramatist  who  obtrudes  himself 
over  and  above  the  story-teller  in  the  writing  of  a  book.  It 
contains  the  attitude  of  the  dialogue,  and  so  we  may  claim 
that  Mr.  Fitch  was  a  born  playwright,  in  the  double  sense 
that  in  expressing  himself  he  perforce  had  to  use  dialogue, 
and  in  viewing  life  he  invariably  felt  compelled  to  estimate 
it  in  terms  of  situation.  His  undoing  was  that  he  lacked 
the  consuming  idea. 

As  far  as  dramatic  belief  is  concerned,  Mr.  Fitch  was 
thoroughly  sincere.  He  lived  up  to  his  convictions  as  to 


174  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

what  drama  should  be  in  general,  and  he  expressed  his  con 
victions  in  the  following  terms : 

"  I  feel  myself  very  strongly  the  particular  value  —  a 
value  which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  I  can't  help  feeling  inesti- 
i  mable  —  in  a  modern  play,  of  reflecting  absolutely  and  truth 
fully  the  life  and  environment  about  us;  every  class,  every 
kind,  every  emotion,  every  motive,  every  occupation,  every 
business,  every  idleness!  Never  was  life  so  varied,  so  com 
plex.  .  .  .  Take  what  strikes  you  most,  in  the  hope  it  will 
interest  others;  take  what  suits  you  most  to  do  —  what 
perhaps  you  can  do  best,  and  then  do  it  better.  Be  truthful, 
and  then  nothing  can  be  too  big,  nothing  should  be  too 
small,  so  long  as  it  is  here  and  there.  ...  If  you  inculcate  an 
idea  in  your  play,  so  much  the  better  for  your  play  and  for 
you  and  for  your  audience.  In  fact,  there  is  small  hope  for 
your  play  as  a  play,  if  you  have  not  some  idea  in  it,  some 
where  and  somehow,  even  if  it  is  hidden.  It  is  sometimes 
better  for  you  if  it  is  hidden,  but  it  must  of  course  be  integral. 
.  .  .  One  should  write  what  one  sees,  but  observe  under 
the  surface.  It  is  a  mistake  to  look  at  the  reflection  of  the 
sky  in  the  water  of  theatrical  convention;  instead,  look  up 
and  into  the  sky  of  real  life  itself." 

This  quotation  contains  the  essence  of  Mr.  Fitch's  attitude 
toward  life.  It  shows  him  prone  to  place  idea  throughout 
his  work  in  a  secondary  position,  and  he  thus  unconsciously 
became  a  very  true  critic  of  himself.  For  he  was  given  to 
infuse  into  his  picturesque  entertainments  some  small  sem 
blance  of  ideas,  which,  while  not  seemingly  vital,  were  so 
commonplace  as  to  have  intimate  connection  with  the  human 
side  of  his  audiences.  "The  Climbers,"  "The  Girl  with  the 
Green  Eyes,"  "The  Girl  and  the  Judge,"  "Her  Own  Way," 
—  each  of  these  contains  an  element  of  live  meaning, 
apart  from  the  mere  interest  of  story  or  attractiveness 
of  scene;  and  this  very  presence  of  a  suggestion  of  the 


CLYDE  FITCH  AND  THE  LOCAL  SENSE    175 

vital  spark  in  drama  is  what  made  one  most  regretful  re 
garding  Mr.  Fitch  as  a  dramatist.  For  he  had  that  within 
him,  out  of  which  worthy  dramatic  literature  might  have 
been  evolved. 

The  general  impression  was  that  he  did  not  make  good, 
for  the  very  reason  that  his  ideas  never  seemed  to  arrive. 
That  he  was  not  consciously  imitative  of  foreign  models  is 
observable  by  the  fact  that  whenever  he  attempted  to  ab 
sorb  foreign  situations,  whenever  he  adapted  French  pieces, 
such  as  "Sapho,"  those  qualities  for  which  he  might  be 
justly  praised  were  either  corrupted  or  wholly  absent  from 
the  scene.  But  Mr.  Fitch  was  not  indifferent  to  foreign 
activity,  especially  as  manifest  in  the  modern  French  dramas. 
Curiously,  he  welcomed  in  them  just  those  large  and  sig 
nificant  characteristics  which,  had  he  possessed  them,  would 
have  placed  him  in  the  front  ranks  of  the  progressive  dra 
matic  movement.  He  once  said:  "No  one  at  the  present 
moment  is  getting  the  essence  of  his  environment  in  thought, 
word,  and  deed,  as  Hervieu,  Lavedan,  Donnay,  Capus: 
Capus  with  the  idea  for  the  basic  principle,  the  idea  serious; 
Lavedan  and  Donnay,  the  idea  social;  Capus  all  sorts  of 
ideas  together,  any  old  idea  so  long  as  it  is  always  life  — 
especially  the  life  superficial,  with  the  undercurrent  really 
kept  under/' 

Our  American  dramatist  has,  during  the  past  decade, 
developed  within  himself  a  tremendous  sense  of  locality.  This 
is  very  natural,  considering  his  keenness  of  observation. 
But  he  has  not  yet  sufficiently  balanced  this  observation 
with  an  intellectual  perspective  of  those  characteristics  which 
go  to  make  the  nation.  We  could  more  readily  describe 
Mr.  Fitch  by  saying  that  he  was  a  typical  New  York  dram 
atist,  than  a  typical  American  dramatist ;  for  the  conventions 
running  through  his  plays  are  those  of  a  society  which  is 
common  to  New  York  City.  Even  in  his  scenic  indications, 


176  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

he  preferred  to  appeal  to  the  local  sense  of  New  Yorkers.  His 
"  Major  Andre,"  played  at  the  Savoy  Theatre,  was  supposed 
to  have  taken  place  in  an  old  colonial  residence  situated 
exactly  on  the  spot  occupied  by  the  Savoy  Theatre  itself. 
His  "Glad  of  It"  had  one  act  behind  the  scenes  of  the  Savoy 
Theatre.  His  "  Captain  Jinks  of  the  Horse  Marines"  opened 
on  the  docks  of  the  Cunard  Steamship  Company.  The  last 
two  acts  of  "  The  Truth  "  were  laid  in  a  Harlem  flat.  "  Girls  " 
was  filled  with  allusions  to  apartment  life  in  New  York,  which 
only  New  Yorkers  could  fully  appreciate. 

This  local  sense  is  most  likely  to  be  encouraged  in  those 
dramatists  who  have  gained  experience  through  newspaper 
reporting.  Mr.  Thomas  confesses  that  when  he  began  to 
write  for  the  stage,  he  mentally  divided  the  country  into 
various  sections  for  his  own  purposes.  He  did  this  by  cen 
tring  his  attention  upon  the  social  position  women  occupied 
in  the  North,  South,  East,  and  West,  and  he  states  the  case 
thus :  "  In  the  South  the  unwritten  law  and  the  spotlessness 
of  a  woman's  reputation  are  the  first  items,  as  they  are  the 
last.  In  the  middle  West  they  are  not  so  punctilious;  and 
in  the  far  West,  where  the  scarcity  of  the  article  raises  its 
price,  a  woman's  position  is  not  prohibitive,  if,  after  ac 
cepting  a  man's  name  and  his  protection,  she  runs  straight 
and  is  true.  In  the  North  we  have  commenced  to  accept  the 
English  idea  of  compensation  and  consideration  for  services 
to  the  husband  where  a  wife  has  been  seduced."  Whether 
Mr.  Thomas  actually  did  regard  the  country  from  this 
standpoint  must  be  supported  by  careful  examination  of 
his  plays,  but  we  believe  that  this  statement  of  his  is  more 
closely  applicable  to  Mr.  Fitch's  own  consideration  of  the 
sex  problem.  His  plays  were  avowedly  romantic,  their 
psychology  mostly  commonplace  and  healthy.  It  was  dis 
tinctively  the  psychology  of  the  story-teller,  and  in  in 
stances  was  not  only  cleverly,  but  realistically,  portrayed. 


CLYDE  FITCH  AND  THE  LOCAL  SENSE    177 

For  instance,  "The  Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes"  is  a  close, 
persistent  analysis  of  jealousy. 

Mr.  Fitch  attempted  nearly  every  form  of  drama.  His 
character  studies,  such  as  those  typified  by  "  Beau  Brummel" 
—  written  in  conjunction  with  Mr.  Mansfield,  —  "  Frederic 
Lemaitre,"  and  "His  Grace  de  Grammont,"  reveal  a 
delicacy  and  deftness  which,  although  lacking  in  virility, 
constitute,  none  the  less,  miniatures  of  a  notable  order.  He 
attempted  war  drama  in  his  "Nathan  Hale"  and  "Barbara 
Frietchie,"  but  they  may  be  described  as  war  dramas  with 
the  war  left  out.  He  wrote  straight  comedies  as  well  as  farces; 
and  in  the  realm  of  melodrama,  such  a  piece  as  "  The  Woman 
in  the  Case"  might  be  taken  as  a  typical  example. 

The  interest  of  Mr.  Fitch  usually  centred  upon  the  femi 
nine  side  of  his  play.  No  writer  for  the  stage  had  a  keener 
sense  of  changing  styles  and  foibles  than  he.  Oftentimes  his 
weakness  lay  in  his  too  great  dependence  upon  the  novelty 
or  familiarity  of  detail.  He  wrote  so  many  pieces  with  these 
characteristics,  that  we  were  never  startled  by  Mr.  Fitch's 
inventive  powers.  Before  going  to  see  a  new  piece,  we  were 
almost  sure  of  finding  certain  familiar  features  which  belonged 
to  no  one  else  but  him.  Our  curiosity  was  piqued,  but 
so  distinctly  did  we  imagine  that  we  knew  the  flavor  of  Mr. 
Fitch's  atmosphere,  that  unless  he  gave  us  that  flavor  we 
left  the  theatre  disappointed.  We  can  say  of  "  The  Climbers," 
for  example,  that  through  the  customary  method  Mr.  Fitch 
employed,  his  public  was  willing  to  find  amusement  in  the 
first  act  of  a  play  which  opened  in  a  house  of  mourning  a 
short  while  after  the  burial  service  had  been  performed. 
In  "  The  Stubbornness  of  Geraldine,"  which  in  point  of  love 
interest  is  as  typically  German  as  "Her  Great  Match," 
the  cleverness  of  representing  the  deck  of  one  of  our  large 
ocean  liners  was  legitimately  entertaining. 

But  the  Fitch  flavor,  which  was  so  familiar  to  theatre- 


178  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

goers,  and  which  might  almost  be  said  to  have  become 
crystallized,  created  in  the  forty  or  fifty  plays,  which  are  to 
his  credit,  a  level  of  cleverness  above  which  very  few  of  the 
pieces  stand  out.  Nearly  all  of  his  plays  bore  a  close  relation 
ship,  one  with  the  other.  His  heroines  were  mostly  of  the 
same  romantic  type,  his  heroes  had  the  same  polished  daring. 
It  is  a  mistaken  idea  that  there  are  but  few  ways  in  drama 
of  creating  humor.  We  may  no  doubt  reduce  an  analysis 
of  humor  to  a  certain  number  of  elements,  but  the  combi 
nations  of  those  elements  are  infinite.  The  fault  with  Mr. 
Fitch's  humor  rested  in  the  fact  that  he  was  prone  to  use 
the  same  combinations  over  and  over  again.  I  would  say 
of  him  that  his  grasp  of  the  life  and  manners  of  New  York, 
from  earliest  times,  was  more  intimate  than  that  possessed 
i'  by  any  other  dramatist  or  writer  of  the  day.  Because  of 
this  grasp,  he  was  able  to  play  with  details,  to  contrast  the 
past  with  the  present,  to  create  his  humor  by  means  of  this 
balance  of  the  past  with  the  present.  Take,  for  example, 
"Captain  Jinks  of  the  Horse  Marines."  The  references  to 
Hoboken  made  by  Madame  Trentoni  are  put  from  the  stand 
point  of  those  early  times,  rather  than  from  the  standpoint 
of  to-day.  Should  one  read  the  diaries  of  Tyrone  Power, 
the  grandfather  of  the  present  actor  of  that  name,  he  would 
find  the  same  characteristic  innuendoes  that  sound  humor 
ous  to  us  to-day,  simply  because  they  —  while  not  wholly 
true  of  the  Hoboken  of  the  present  —  have,  nevertheless,  an 
element  of  truth  in  them. 

Mr.  Fitch  created  humor,  likewise,  by  a  method  of  com 
paring  material  advance.  When  Madame  Trentoni  comes 
down  the  gang-plank  and  meets  the  New  York  newspaper 
reporters,  she  is  enthusiastic  about  the  quickness  of  the 
trip  over  —  something  like  fourteen  days  —  and  the  reporters 
boast  that  in  time  to  come  they  will  even  be  able  to  make 
it  in  ten  days.  In  view  of  the  Lusitania,  one  cannot  help 


CLYDE  FITCH  AND  THE  LOCAL  SENSE    179 

but  smile!  And  this  was  the  deftness  of  Mr.  Fitch  at  full 
play.  Take  away  from  him  those  characteristics  that  were 
known  as  the  Fitch  qualities,  and  which  might  be  termed 
superficial  qualities  if  they  were  not  truthful  reproductions 
—  however  they  might  be  superficial  —  and  the  remaining 
characteristics  would  indicate  his  limitations. 

The  comedy  of  manners  is  not  only  a  legitimate  form  of 
dramatic  art,  but  it  is  also  one  of  the  hardest  forms  to  make 
vital.  "The  School  for  Scandal"  has  persisted  from  gener 
ation  to  generation,  not  because  of  its  story,  not  because 
of  its  reflection  of  eighteenth  century  habits  and  customs, 
not  because  of  its  idea,  which  is  hardly  noteworthy,  but 
because  of  its  humanity  underlying  the  superficial,  a  human 
ity  which  is  eternal,  whether  in  powder  and  patches,  in  hoop- 
skirts,  or  in  the  fashions  of  the  present.  There  is  a  spontaneous 
flow  of  humor  in  this  drama,  dependent  upon  character, 
rather  than  upon  situation  or  local  reference.  In  fact,  an 
over-abundance  of  local  reference  would  take  the  sympa 
thetic  appeal  away  from  a  comedy  after  the  age  had  passed. 

Moreover,  an  over-emphasis  of  the  local,  even  at  close 
range,  is  detrimental  to  the  understanding  of  a  piece,  out 
side  that  particular  locality.  Local  characteristics,  even 
national  characteristics  are  only  useful,  in  so  far  as  they 
help  to  round  out  the  character-value  of  the  play.  The 
Americanism  in  "The  Lion  and  the  Mouse"  was  its  ruin 
ation  in  England.  The  Western  allusions  in  George  Ade's 
"The  College  Widow,"  which  was  presented  in  London, 
hastened  its  return  home.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  Mr. 
Fitch  successfully  produced  abroad  only  those  plays  of  his 
that  were  more  French  in  flavor  than  American.  "The 
Cowboy  and  the  Lady"  was  only  fairly  received.  But  "The 
Truth"  has  not  only  brought  success  to  Marie  Tempest; 
because  of  its  foreign  atmosphere,  it  has  won  its  way  through 
out  the  Continent.  Americans  never  quite  realized  how 


180  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

much  of  a  reputation  Mr.  Fitch  had  abroad.  His  last  trip 
to  Europe  was  a  veritable  sweep  of  the  theatrical  field. 
London  had  just  received  favorably  "The  Woman  in  the 
Case,"  and  other  managers  were  clamoring  for  his  pieces, 
no  matter  how  old  they  were.  Sir  Charles  Wyndham  was 
watching  "  The  Blue  Mouse,"  Belasco  was  seeking  a  contract 
with  him,  and  every  one  was  envious  of  the  Shuberts  who 
had  secured  the  rights  to  "The  City,"  that  play  which  was 
to  prove  the  last  forceful  flash  of  the  maturing  Mr.  Fitch. 

The  list  of  plays  I  have  compiled  will  indicate  some  of 
the  activity  of  Mr.  Fitch.  It  will  show  that  in  point  of 
variety,  if  not  in  point  of  solidity,  he  was  closely  akin  to 
Mr.  Pinero,  without  that  deep  interest  in  the  psychology 
of  character  which  marks  the  English  playwright.  It  might 
almost  be  said  that  the  majority  of  his  plays  were  but  vari 
ations  of  the  same  theme.  His  technique  was  sometimes 
skilful,  at  other  times  it  was  hasty  and  crude;  at  its  best 
it  was  more  polished  than  vigorous.  In  the  matter  of  dram 
atization,  one  might  well  imagine  why  Mr.  Fitch  was  un 
successful  in  turning  Alfred  Henry  Lewis's  "Wolfville 
Stories"  into  a  Western  play.  But  it  is  less  evident,  except 
in  the  inherent  defects  that  beset  the  dramatization  of  any 
novel,  why  it  was  that  "The  House  of  Mirth,"  a  distinct 
ively  New  York  story  of  the  smart-set,  written  by  Mrs. 
Wharton,  should  have  missed  the  mark. 

One  final  characteristic  of  Mr.  Fitch  needs  to  be  noted, 
and  it  becomes  distinctive  if  the  reader  is  at  all  familiar 
with  the  personalities  involved.  Mr.  Fitch  nearly  always 
wrote  his  plays  with  a  definite  actress  in  view.  The  con 
sequence  is  that  his  characters  almost  invariably  partook 
of  the  personality  of  their  model.  In  "The  Truth"  and  in 
"The  Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes,"  the  heroines  are  markedly 
like  the  late  Clara  Bloodgood.  In  "The  Stubbornness  of 
Geraldine,"  the  heroine  is  closely  related  to  Mary  Manner- 


CLYDE  FITCH  AND  THE  LOCAL  SENSE    181 

ing.  It  is  hard  to  find  a  better  portrait  of  Miss  Barrymore 
than  in  "Captain  Jinks."  "Her  Own  Way"  is  identified 
with  Maxine  Elliott,  and  "Barbara  Frietchie"  is  synony 
mous  with  Julia  Marlowe. 

Thus,  after  noting  the  chief  plays  to  Mr.  Fitch's  credit, 
we  return  to  the  original  thesis,  which  dealt  with  the  three 
underlying  factors  in  drama.  Our  consideration  has  un 
doubtedly  shown  that  what  Mr.  Fitch  needed  most  was  the 
accentuation  of  the  element  of  idea,  of  vital  idea.  By  the 
cultivating  of  this,  he  would  perforce  have  been  obliged 
to  work  less  rapidly.  But  Mr.  Fitch  was  never  careless, 
even  in  his  rapidity.  Quick  workmanship  was  part  of  his 
nature;  he  was  quick  to  observe  and  quick  to  appreciate. 
His  humor  was  ever  present,  and  he  dramatized  everything 
that  came  within  his  vision.  To  his  sense  of  character,  his 
sense  of  situation,  and  his  sense  of  dialogue,  Mr.  Fitch  added 
a  fourth  sense  distinctively  his  own  —  that  of  New  York 
locality.  His  position  in  American  drama  is  one  which  has 
afforded  a  large  amount  of  healthy  enjoyment;  and  to  have 
done  this  is  to  have  done  a  great  deal.  In  the  matter  of  con 
struction,  his  plays  that  have  been  published  will  serve  the 
dramatic  student  as  excellent  examples  of  external  stage 
craft.  They  will  illustrate  for  him  in  what  manner  the 
observation  of  familiar  detail  may  be  made  use  of,  theatri 
cally;  they  will  illustrate  in  what  way  the  interest  of  an 
audience  may  be  held  through  an  ordinary,  though  none 
the  less  picturesque,  story.1 

1  The  following  references  will  prove  suggestive:  Book  Buyer, 
17:118  (E.  F.  Coward);  Book  Buyer,  16:323  (E.  A.  Dithmar); 
Critic,  38:225  (J.  R.  Towse). 

"  Barbara  Frietchie  " :  Literature,  5:411 ;  Pub.  Opin.,  27:563;  Harp. 
W.,  43:1096  (J.  Corbin);  Lit.  W.,  30:361  (J.  D.  Barry);  B'kman, 
10:317  (N.  Hapgood);  Critic,  35:1143  (J.  R.  Towse). 

"  Cowboy  and  the  Lady  ":  Athanceum,  '99,  1:731;  Sat.  Rev.,  87:718 
(M.  Beerbohm). 


182  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Clyde  Fitch  has  been  dead  over  a  year  (1911).  Had  he  lived 
much  beyond  forty-five,  we  should  have  seen  a  certain 
transformation  in  his  technique,  and  a  more  pronounced 
purpose  in  his  plots;  for  he  was  becoming  deeply  conscious 
of  the  fundamental  truths  of  life,  and  he  was  eager  to  put 
strength  into  his  dialogue  in  order  to  offset  the  delicacy 
and  feminine  flashes  which  the  public  always  considered 
purely  Fitchean.  "The  City"  was  his  first,  as  it  proved 
to  be  his  last,  effort  in  that  direction. 

Mr.  Fitch  often  claimed  that  he  was  always  measured  in 
the  public  press  by  stereotyped  phrases  which  clung  to  him 
because  his  manner  was  ever  the  same.  He  deplored  the 
fact  that  the  newspapers  failed  to  give  him  credit  for  his 
close  study  of  character,  such  as  one  finds  in  "  The  Girl  with 
the  Green  Eyes"  and  in  "The  Truth."  Only  after  he  was 
dead  did  the  critics  begin  to  realize  the  incommunicable 
flavor  permeating  his  dramas.  This  flavor  came  partly 
from  a  close  understanding  of  New  York  life,  whether  of  the 
past  or  of  the  present  —  in  "  Captain  Jinks  of  the  Horse 
Marines"  or  in  "Girls."  But  it  was  in  larger  share  the 
flavor  of  personality.  No  degree  of  profundity  could  ever 
have  limited  Clyde  Fitch's  enthusiasm  while  writing  or 
rehearsing;  he  was  quick  in  mind  and  in  execution,  and 
sometimes  his  very  deftness  and  easy  brilliancy  were  his 
undoing.  He  realized  this;  he  tried  his  best  to  push  back 
the  numberless  contracts  and  offers  which  claimed  his 
time. 

He  took  his  success  as  naively  as  a  boy,  but  he  was  plan 
ning  to  place  more  attention  upon  the  message  than  he  had 

"Head  of  the  Family":  II.  Am.,  24:492;  Harp.  W.,  42:1273  (J. 
Corbin). 

"Moth  and  the  Flame":   Critic,  n.  s.,  29:271. 

"Nathan  Hale":  Harp.  W.,  43:35;  B'kman,  8:528  (N.Hapgood); 
Critic,  34:142;  Harp.  W.,  43:213  (J.  Corbin). 


CLYDE  FITCH  AND  THE  LOCAL  SENSE    183 

heretofore  done.  This  may  later  have  handicapped  him, 
for  passages  of  an  ethical  nature  in  "A  Happy  Marriage" 
retarded  the  action  of  the  piece. 

After  all,  the  sum  total  of  his  work  cannot  be  rejected 
from  the  body  of  dramatic  literature;  his  very  style  is  dis 
tinctive  and  is  a  measure  of  the  man's  outlook  upon  life. 
He  told  his  story  simply,  directly,  tenderly  and  humorously. 
Only  when  he  resorted  to  theatrical  trickery  did  his  work 
become  uneven;  and  this  unevenness  accentuated  the  rich 
humanity  and  the  kindly  observation  of  his  normal  plays. 
One  cannot  call  "The  Stubbornness  of  Geraldine"  a  great 
drama,  but  it  has  a  certain  lively  charm  that  no  other  play 
wright  seems  able  to  embody  in  a  play.  The  temptation 
is  to  call  such  sentiment  commonplace.  "Granny"  was 
full  of  it;  so  was  "The  Girl  Who  Has  Everything."  Seeing 
these  plays  in  succession,  the  theatre-goer  would  criticise 
their  apparent  resemblance.  But  an  analysis  would  in 
evitably  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  resemblance  lay 
in  the  same  personality  behind  them,  and  not  in  any  monot 
ony  of  detail. 

Clyde  Fitch  was  extravagant  in  his  invention;  he  was 
careless  in  throwing  a  whole  problem  away  within  the  limits 
of  a  line  of  dialogue.  Such  extravagance  was  indicative  of 
his  natural  interest  in  all  things  bearing  on  human  relation 
ships.  He  brought  the  whole  of  life  within  the  compass  of 
home,  and  he  gained  his  audiences  by  a  seeming  comrade 
ship  which  made  them  feel  that  his  windows  overlooked 
the  very  housetops  with  which  they  themselves  were  famil 
iar.  He  knew  how  to  use  the  reporter's  method;  one  could 
see  this  in  "The  Woman  in  the  Case,"  and  in  "The  City." 
But  his  usual  method  was  literary,  not  journalistic;  it 
was  narrative  in  direct  fashion,  and  not  impressionistic. 
And  because  he  knew  his  New  York  so  well,  he  could  afford 
to  throw  out  those  sparks  of  wit  and  humor  which  tran- 


184  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

scend  a  town,  and  are  common  to  all  provincial  attitudes 
toward  life.  If  he  was  cynical,  it  was  friendly  banter;  he 
was  never  bitter.  Yet  looking  deeper  into  the  printed  page 
of  his  published  plays,  it  is  apparent  that  he  had  had  quite 
enough  of  society  at  the  time  of  his  death;  that  the  city 
had  made  such  demands  upon  his  physical  strength  as  to 
turn  his  desire  toward  the  quietness  of  country  life.  There, 
he  would  have  started  the  larger  work  of  a  different  kind 
from  that  characterizing  his  long  list  of  popular  plays. 
Whether  he  would  have  succeeded  as  well  is  a  matter  for 
futile  speculation. 

He  has  been  dead  over  a  year,  and  he  is  missed;  there  is 
no  one  to  take  his  place.  A  remark  was  once  made  by  Thomas 
A.  Edison  to  the  effect  that  he  hoped  some  day  to  have  the 
time  at  his  disposal  for  making  a  real  contribution  to  science. 
But  it  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  anything  he  may  do  will 
ever  surpass  his  actual  genius  in  hitching  his  wagon  to  a 
star;  in  other  words,  in  attaching  a  high  imagination  to 
practical  conditions.  So  was  it  with  Clyde  Fitch.  His 
personality  is  part  of  the  work  he  did,  and  New  York's 
duty  is  clearly  defined,  for  he  is  in  a  sense  the  city's  play 
wright.  America  has  not  yet  understood  what  honor  is 
due  to  such  literary  achievement.  Its  immediate  reward 
was  in  the  crowds  that  constituted  a  Fitch  following  for 
some  fifty  plays,  mostly  popular  in  their  long  "  runs."  Still, 
there  is  more  to  do,  for  now  that  he  is  dead,  we  know  that 
something  rare  is  taken  from  the  theatre  —  something 
with  a  distinct  literary  value  —  light,  no  doubt,  airy,  and 
sometimes  frothy,  but  none  the  less  life  with  which  we  are 
all  familiar. 

There  is  nothing  old-fashioned  in  Clyde  Fitch's  attitude 
or  in  his  workmanship;  they  will  scarcely  become  out-of- 
date  for  many  a  decade.  There  are  other  artists  much 
stronger,  with  theories  of  technique  much  more  original.  But 


CLYDE  FITCH  AND  THE  LOCAL  SENSE    185 

Clyde  Fitch's  originality  is  to  be  found  in  his  close  con 
nection  with  the  material  he  used.  His  audiences  were  given 
much  more  of  himself  than  they  ever  knew.  And  that  is 
why  they  will  never  find  any  other  plays  quite  like 
his. 


CHAPTER    XI 

CONCERNING  MELODRAMA 

THE  use  of  the  term  melodrama  has  undergone  many  changes, 
and  it  is  a  question  whether  at  the  present  moment  it  is 
not  being  subjected  to  another  modification  or  crucial  shift 
ing  of  the  point  of  view.  Such  a  bastard  form  of  art  has  it 
been  regarded  by  the  majority  of  theatre-goers,  that  one 
has  lost  sight  of  its  origin  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  of 
the  romantic  stock  from  which  it  sprang.  The  term  melo 
drama  or  melodramatic,  as  applied  to  a  play,  is  popularly 
looked  upon  as  a  sign  of  condemnation,  yet  if  we  consider 
the  essential  ingredients  for  a  moment,  we  will  see  that  the 
melodrama  itself  is  not  the  thing  to  be  condemned,  but  rather 
the  special  form  in  which  it  is  expressed. 

The  historical  side  of  the  subject  has  received  scant  atten 
tion  from  the  scholar.  While  in  general  we  are  told  that 
Ottavio  Rinuccini  toward  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century 
invented  the  term  melodrama,  from  the  Greek  words  meaning 
melody  and  action,  and  while  we  are  given  to  understand 
that  in  its  application  it  related  entirely  to  opera,  Jean 
Jacques  Rousseau  having  written  his  "Pygmalion"  for 
instrumental  music;  still  a  scholar  has  yet  to  unravel  its 
development  from  the  intricacies  of  the  romantic  period, 
which  swept  through  Italy  and  France  and  thence  to  Eng 
land.  It  is  hardly  conceivable  that  the  music  written  by 
Beethoven  for  "Egmont,"  or  by  Massenet  for  "Phedre," 
should  be  classed  in  the  same  genre  as  "  Nellie,  the  Beautiful 


CONCERNING  MELODRAMA  187 

Cloak  Model"  or  "Convict  999;"  1  yet  such  is  the  case,  and 
from  such  a  loose  application  of  the  term  there  has  arisen 
a  misunderstanding  as  to  the  true  elements  in  melodrama. 

Analyzing  the  relation  between  music  and  drama,  we  note 
the  point  from  which  melodrama  might  be  said  to  start. 
Always  the  highest  moments  in  an  opera,  the  most  brilliant 
moments,  are  those  which  involve  the  characteristic  elements 
of  a  glaring  play.  The  characters  sing  longest  when  they 
are  dying,  they  boast  loudest  in  the  most  pronounced  arias 
of  the  score;  their  actions  are  broad  and  lack  subtlety,  a 
subtlety  which  is  dependent  more  upon  the  music  than  upon 
the  play.  Possibly  it  is  because  the  musician  has  instinctively 
realized  that  the  moments  of  greatest  music  are  the  moments 
of  greatest  human  suffering;  and  undoubtedly  the  melo- 
dramatist  of  to-day  has  grasped  this  fact,  and  is  working  it  for 
all  it  is  worth.  Take  away  from  our  operas  the  orchestration, 
and  the  plots  will  be  little  more  than  out  and  out  melodrama. 

The  student  of  the  theatre  will  some  day,  in  dealing  with 
this  subject  of  melodrama,  be  forced  to  disentangle  its 
beginnings  from  the  most  heightened  creations  of  the  roman 
tic  period.  He  will  not  disdain  to  connect  this  genre  of  play- 
writing  with  that  struggle  which  went  on  between  the  classic 
spirit  and  the  romantic  spirit,  and  which  finally  resulted 
in  the  victory  of  the  latter,  when  Victor  Hugo,  in  1830, 
published  "Hernani."  It  was  the  same  struggle  which  had 
commenced  in  France  when  the  Academicians,  Boileau  and 
Charles  Perrault,  became  so  deeply  involved  in  a  quarrel 
resulting  in  petty  innuendoes  and  personal  thrusts. 

Practically  the  same  result  was  accomplished  in  England 

1  The  methods  of  advertising  melodrama  are  unique.  When 
"Convict  999"  was  first  produced,  three  men  in  stripes,  and  chained 
together,  tramped  the  streets  of  New  York.  The  managers  of 
"Tony,  the  Bootblack"  sent  three  boys  through  certain  sections  of 
the  city,  giving  free  shines  to  all  holders  of  tickets  for  "the  show." 


188  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

as  Dutton  Cook  claims  was  effected  in  France.  For,  to 
quote  the  latter:  "Schlegel,  writing  early  in  the  century, 
notes  that  dramatic  poetry  in  Paris  possessed  a  certain 
point  of  contact  with  the  police,  and  that  the  restrictions 
placed  upon  the  leading  theatres  banished  to  the  minor  stages 
all  new  and  mixed  attempts  at  histrionic  entertainment." 

The  history  of  melodrama  in  England  began  in  1802, 
when  Holcroft  adapted  a  French  manuscript  which  he  called 
"A  Tale  of  Mystery."  And  at  this  early  period  it  is  inter 
esting  to  note  the  popular  conception  of  the  origin  of  the 
term  melodrama,  as  conceived  by  the  son  of  Harris,  the 
manager  of  Covent  Garden.  He  wrote  to  Frederick  Reynolds 
from  Paris  regarding  the  peculiar  type  of  plays  which  were 
classed  under  a  name  derived  from  the  two  words  meler 
and  drame.1 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  advent  of  the  Dion  Boucicault 
sensationalism,  for  he  may  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  first 
to  combine  the  excess  of  situation  with  the  excess  of  stage 
mechanism,  melodrama  might  be  said  to  have  become  almost 
conventional  in  its  adherence  to  a  species  of  foreign  brigand 
literature.  There  was  not  very  much  desire  to  accentuate 
the  events  of  everyday  life,  but,  adhering  to  the  stereotyped 
romantic  passions  and  situations  of  the  Radcliffe  school  of 
novels,  the  melodramatist  of  this  earlier  period  wrote  more 
in  the  tone  of  the  opera  librettist  than  of  the  dramatist. 
The  history  of  melodrama  in  this  country,  to  within  recent 
years,  is  practically  the  same  as  that  of  England,  and  the 
two  may  be  said  to  have  been  dependent  upon  French  sources. 
In  the  period  of  1860,  America  was  inundated  with  a  type 
of  "dime  novel"  story,  which  spread  from  ocean  to  ocean, 
affecting  literature  for  growing  boys,  and  likewise  afford 
ing  a  new  impetus  to  melodrama.  For  about  this  time, 

1  Gr.  melos,  song,  +  drama (t-),  <  drao,  perform. 


Photo,  by  Sarony 


DION  BOUCICAULT 


CONCERNING  MELODRAMA  189 

as  we  have  said  before,  Mr.  Belasco  was  enjoying  such  a 
glaring  piece  as  "The  Idiot  Boy  of  the  Rocky  Mountains;" 
and  when  he  reached  the  East,  he  found  that  Mr.  Daly  had 
made  a  success  with  a  melodrama  of  that  section,  entitled 
"Under  the  Gaslight."  The  type  of  play  such  as  "The 
Two  Orphans/'  which  is  in  its  essentials  nothing  but  a  melo 
drama,  could  not  long  survive  the  reaction  which  in  drama 
was  now  to  take  place.  There  is  no  doubt  that,  even  as 
Pinero  and  Jones  were  to  break  from  Robertson  and  Taylor, 
and  realism  was  to  usurp  the  boards,  so  melodrama  would 
likewise  be  affected  by  this  very  realism.  The  ingredients 
have  always  been  the  same,  but  the  objective  point  of  view 
was  obliged  to  undergo  material  alteration  with  the  change 
of  conditions.  The  present-day  melodrama,  which  is  better 
named  sensational  drama,  has  been  materially  affected  by 
those  forces  which  have  been  detected  behind  yellow  journal 
ism. 

Let  us  get  clearly  in  mind  the  characteristics  marking 
melodrama.  The  dominant  feature  is  situation;  the  broadest 
results  of  the  very  broadest  and  most  elemental  emotions. 
Mr.  Walkley  has  expressed  it  by  saying  that  there  are  two 
sides  of  a  criminal,  the  outside  and  the  inside,  melodrama 
usually  dealing  with  the  former,  whereas  the  novelist  would 
search  for  the  conditions  resulting  in  the  existence  of  the 
criminal.  These  two  sides  are  in  substance  the  distinctive 
difference  between  present-day  melodrama  and  present- 
day  fiction. 

The  old  English  and  French  miracle  plays  had  in  them  all 
the  essentials  of  this  glaring  stage  type.  The  manner  in 
which  the  miracle  of  "St.  Nicholas  and  the  Thieves"  was 
presented,  the  careful  delineation  of  Hellmouth,  with  the 
Devil  and  his  demons  rushing  up  and  down  the  aisles  of  the 
church,  appealed  to  the  same  instincts  in  the  mass  of  medi 
aeval  people,  that  the  broad  glorification  of  good  and  the  met- 


190  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

ing  of  punishment  do  to  the  people  of  to-day.  Fitzball,  who 
was  considered  one  of  the  most  productive  melodramatists 
of  the  early  nineteenth  century  in  England,  heard  Sheridan 
Knowles  proclaim  that  he  considered  "Macbeth"  one  of  the 
finest  melodramas  he  had  ever  seen;  and  there  is  undoubted 
truth  in  what  he  said.  Perhaps  he  asserted  this  as  a  defense 
of  his  own  play,  "The  Hunchback"  —  which  itself  belongs 
to  this  class  of  drama.  But  even  at  that  early  day  the  term 
had  been  so  misused  and  the  species  had  so  broadened,  freed 
from  the  narrow  restrictions  of  the  patent  theatres  of  Lon 
don,  that  Douglas  Jerrold,  in  his  report  before  the  Parlia 
mentary  Commission  of  1832,  appointed  to  examine  into 
the  status  of  the  London  theatres,  inadvertently  invented 
a  new  term,  which  is  familiar  to  us  to-day  as  the  legitimate 
drama,  and  which  he  pitted  against  this  other  form.  Not 
only  did  he  deplore  the  over-accentuation  of  the  physical 
result  to  the  detriment  of  the  mental  cause  in  melodrama, 
but  Macready  likewise  regarded  the  sensational  with  such 
disfavor  that  his  contracts  stipulated  he  should  be  given 
no  part  partaking  of  a  melodramatic  character. 

Up  to  this  time  melodrama,  which  is  not  only  a  legitimate 
type,  but  also  a  dominant  characteristic  of  our  American 
life,  has  run  wild.  The  writer  of  melodrama  has  misinter 
preted  his  license,  and  the  lovers  of  the  melodramatic  are 
being  sated  with  a  succession  of  situations  and  a  minimum 
of  plot.  One  of  the  most  successful  playwrights  of  this  type 
of  piece  is  Owen  Davis,  the  author  of  "The  Confessions  of 
a  Wife"  —  which  is  distinctive  from  his  other  plays  by  the 
fact  that  it  calls  for  no  "guns,"  to  use  a  professional  term,  — 
"Nellie,  the  Beautiful  Cloak  Model"  and  "Convict  999." 
He  has  declared  that  a  certain  reaction  is  about  to  take 
place  in  this  indiscriminate  use  of  situation  for  situation's 
sake;  that  his  audiences  are  now  beginning  to  see  the  im 
probability  of  so  many  hairbreadth  escapes  occurring  in 


CONCERNING  MELODRAMA  191 

the  life  of  any  human  being  within  the  three  hours'  traffic 
of  the  stage.  The  public  libraries  are  improving  the  taste 
of  the  public.  So  that  from  excess  we  are  forced  to  return  to 
consistency. 

Only  a  hairline  separates  the  emotion  of  Broadway  from 
that  of  the  Bowery.  Mr.  Gillette's  "Sherlock  Holmes"  was 
nothing  more  than  a  "thriller,"  acted  with  a  certain  refine 
ment  and  a  certain  reserve;  which  characteristics  are  usually 
avoided  by  the  manager  of  melodrama.  Not  only  has  the 
sensational  play  taken  unto  itself  a  certain  formula  by  which 
virtue  and  villainy  are  expressed,  but  it  likewise  requires 
a  diction  which  is  excessive  in  its  accentuation. 

When  all  is  told,  therefore,  the  difference  between  the 
legitimate  theatre  and  melodrama  lies  in  this  matter  of 
accentuation.  Bartley  Campbell's  "My  Partner,"  Lester 
Wallack's  "Rosedale,"  "The  White  Heather,"  Jones's  "The 
Silver  King,"  "The  Ticket-of-Leave  Man,"  C.  M.  S.  McLel- 
lan's  "LeahKleschna,"  and  "The  Great  Ruby"  are  accounted 
melodramas  of  the  old  school,  containing  all  the  distorted 
actions  and  passions  of  the  present  type,  but  differing  from 
the  present  type,  inasmuch  as  the  stories  were  consistent 
and  the  characterizations  human.  Despite  the  sensational 
ism  in  Dion  Boucicault,  the  genial  Irish  atmosphere  was 
dominant,  and  the  heart  interest  was  so  romantic  as  to  cover 
the  daring  ventures  with  the  gloss  of  possibility.  Now, 
however,  such  writers  of  melodrama  as  Owen  Davis  and 
Theodore  Kremer  have  discarded  the  intermediate  develop 
ment  between  the  glaring  situations,  and  are  dealing  wholly 
with  the  situations  themselves,  one  after  the  other,  irrespec 
tive  of  their  possibility  in  life,  and  with  the  sole  intention 
of  deadening  the  logical  sense  of  the  spectator  with  sensa 
tionalism. 

Mr.  Davis  is  a  Harvard  graduate,  and  was  drawn  into 
writing  such  plays  as  "Tony,  the  Bootblack"  and  "Nellie, 


192  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

the  Beautiful  Cloak  Model"  by  his  association  with  "The 
Great  Ruby"  company.  He  thought  he  could  write  just 
as  clever  a  story  for  the  stage,  and  so  he  began  then  and 
there,  acting  meanwhile,  until  he  gained  a  footing  as  one 
of  the  principal  manufacturers  of  the  sensational  play.  He 
recognized  the  legitimate  side  of  melodrama,  he  deplored 
the  piling  up  of  catastrophe  upon  catastrophe,  he  saw  the 
bathos  in  the  formula  which  states  that  the  play  ends  only 
when  every  possible  calamity  has  been  exhausted.  Mr. 
Davis  was  what  one  might  call  a  student  of  his  particular 
field.  He  understood  his  public,  which  in  matter  of  taste  is 
of  the  Laura  Jean  Libbey  class.  He  knew  wherein  this  pub 
lic  was  credulous,  —  the  point  of  appeal  in  its  sentimental 
make-up.  His  audiences  would  not  countenance  the  regen 
eration  of  a  stage  bad  man;  they  must  have  the  victory 
of  virtue  and  the  happy  ending;  the  good  must  be  rewarded 
suddenly,  the  bad  must  be  punished  lingeringly. 

Mr.  Davis  has  now  deserted  the  realm  of  the  sensational 
for  that  of  the  legitimate,  but  in  doing  so  he  has  not  forgotten 
the  measure  of  that  public  to  which  he  used  to  make  appeal. 
In  an  interview,  he  has  epitomized  the  characteristics  of 
melodrama  in  this  manner: 

"On  Third  Avenue  the  treatment  is  different.  Instead 
of  avoiding  the  obvious  you  must  insist  upon  it  first,  last 
and  all  the  time.  You  must  move  up  the  ascending  scale  of 
emotions  with  directness.  Your  hero  must  be  labeled  at 
his  first  entrance.  Nothing  must  be  left  to  inference.  It 
is  almost  indispensable  that  he  knock  down  the  villain  in 
the  first  two  minutes  following  his  entrance.  In  the  same 
easy  way  your  comedian  must  get  a  laugh  as  he  comes  on. 
Instead  of  having  your  heroine  pursued  by  some  ab 
stract  thing  such  as  fate,  you  must  have  her  pursued  by  a 
tangible  villain  bent  upon  cutting  her  throat.  You  must 
pile  catastrophe  upon  catastrophe.  By  the  time  the  hero 


CONCERNING  MELODRAMA  193 

throws  his  protecting  arms  around  her  in  the  last  act,  she 
must  have  narrowly  escaped  scalping  by  Indians,  been 
almost  drowned  in  a  mill-race,  missed  death  in  a  train  wreck, 
and  been  shot  at  and  stabbed  by  the  villain,  to  say  nothing 
of  having  passed  unscathed  through  several  conflagrations, 
an  earthquake  or  two,  a  mine  cave-in,  or  a  magazine  ex 
plosion.  The  play  only  ends  when  you  have  exhausted 
every  possible  calamity,  but  it  ends  happily;  it  must  end 
happily.  And  the  hero  must  remain  the  hero,  and  the  vil 
lain  must  die  as  black  as  when  he  first  came  on.  I  know, 
because  I  have  tried.  The  public  has  no  faith  in  the  regen 
eration  of  the  stage  bad  man.  He  is  there  as  the  symbol  of 
everything  that 's  bad,  and  by  the  fourth  act  he  has  com 
mitted  every  crime  possible.  The  audience  does  n't  want 
him  to  repent  and  get  away  free.  He  must  be  killed  linger- 
ingly,  if  possible.  Right  must  triumph  and  wrong  must  be 
punished.  That  is  one  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
so-called  cheap  drama. 

"  In  that  particular  the  cheap  drama  is  a  power  for  good 
and  a  moralizing  force  of  no  little  value.  Our  heroics  are 
mock  heroics,  perhaps,  but  they  have  a  salutary  effect  never 
theless.  The  lowly  laborer  who  lives  a  life  of  squalor  in 
the  back  room  of  a  tenement,  when  he  hears  the  hero  declare 
that  he  would  rather  die  than  steal,  may  come  to  think  that, 
after  all,  this  is  the  sort  of  morality  that  suits  him  too. 

"  Speaking  only  of  my  own  plays,  I  dare  say  that  I  have 
addressed  each  season  an  audience  numbering  upward  of 
seven  million  people.  I  have  had  eighteen  plays  on  the 
road  at  a  time,  and  about  ninety  in  stock.  In  every  one  of 
my  pieces  there  is  some  wholesome  truth,  some  good  moral 
precept  advanced,  and  yet  almost  invariably  the  attitude 
maintained  by  the  press  toward  these  plays  is  one  of  gentle 
derision.  Serious  criticism  of  them  is  never  attempted.  The 
one  reason  why  newspaper  men  are  sent  to  cover  them  is  to 


194  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

poke  fun  at  them  the  next  day.  They  furnish  the  basis  for 
funny  stories,  nothing  else.  Personally,  I  don't  see  any 
fairness  in  this.  Certain  papers  which  I  need  not  mention 
make  special  effort  to  catch  the  proletariat  by  writing  down 
their  editorials  to  the  mental  level  and  understanding  of  the 
illiterate,  prosaic,  unlettered,  uncultured  classes,  and  then 
turn  right  about  to  another  column  and  assume  the  superior 
and  high-art  tone  in  discussing  the  plays  which  these  same 
people  go  to  see." 

And  should  we  ask  Mr.  Davis  to  outline  the  formula  for 
us  succinctly,  he  would  say  that  his  audiences  never  take 
things  for  granted.  You  must  emphasize  for  them  that  a 
certain  event  is  going  to  happen,  that  it  is  happening,  and 
that  it  has  happened;  three  times  each  point  must  be  driven 
home.  Humanity  being  the  keynote,  the  ten-  and  twenty  - 
and  thirty-cent  theatre-goer  must  have  action  laid  on  in  large 
sweeps.  The  emotions  must  not  be  subtle;  they  must  ascend 
toward  the  climax,  not  in  flowing  consistency,  but  with  inter 
mittent  thumps.  The  formula  exacts  that  the  heroine  must 
be  as  young  and  fresh  after  twenty  hairbreadth  escapes  as 
though  she  were  attending  a  garden  party.  Yet  from  the 
technical  side,  Mr.  Davis's  ingenuity  is  striking.  He  wrote 
the  dialogue  for  and  planned  the  staging  of  "The  Siege  of 
Port  Arthur"  for  the  Hippodrome,  and  certain  striking  ele 
ments  therein  he  transferred  to  his  own  melodrama,  "  Convict 
999."  l  He  has  written  so  many  melodramas  of  the  con 
ventional  type,  he  has  studied  the  situation  so  thoroughly, 
that  he  is  able  to  tell  exactly  in  what  respects  the  next  change 
in  melodrama  will  be  revealed.  Although  his  "Gambler 
of  the  West,"  his  "  Broadway  after  Dark,"  his  "  Chinatown 

1  Other  plays  by  Mr.  Davis  are:  "On  Trial  for  his  Life,"  "The 
Crooked  Path,"  "The  Prince  of  Spendthrifts,"  "The  Millionaire 
and  the  Circus  Rider,"  "Jack  Sheppard,  the  Bandit  King,"  and 
"The  King  and  Queen  of  Gamblers." 


CONCERNING  MELODRAMA  195 

Charlie,"  and  his  "Creole  Slave's  Revenge"  are  sure  of  a 
hearing  from  his  particular  following,  he  recognizes  that 
this  following  is  becoming  sated,  that  their  acceptance  is 
being  turned  into  incredulity,  that  they  are  being  educated 
away  from  the  old  order  and  nearer  the  legitimate  realm  of 
melodrama. 

In  this  respect,  it  may  be  noted  that  A.  H.  Woods,  one 
of  the  largest  managers  of  melodrama  in  America,  is  himself 
being  involved  in  this  change.  For  while  he  has  been  the 
means  of  encouraging  the  thriller  of  the  present,  he  likewise, 
as  a  manager,  has  been  drawn  nearer  to  the  legitimate  drama; 
and  a  reaction  is  likewise  occurring  in  his  own  attitude  toward 
this  particular  theatre  which  has  made  him  a  fortune.  Where 
as  heretofore  he  would  have  discountenanced  any  attempt 
on  the  part  of  Owen  Davis  or  Theodore  Kremer,  of  John 
Oliver  or  of  the  other  countless  writers  of  melodrama  to 
use  any  subtle  methods  in  depicting  emotion,  in  treating 
consistent  sequence  of  cause  and  effect,  he  is  now  himself 
becoming  critical  of  the  sensationalism  of  the  past.  Just 
so  soon  as  Mr.  Woods  goes  over  the  line  which  separates  the 
melodramatic  syndicate  from  the  theatrical  trust,  just  so 
soon  will  the  new  departure  in  melodrama  occur.1  Then 
will  Mr.  Davis  be  able  to  put  into  practice  his  greatest  hopes, 
and,  provided  his  sense  of  proportion  is  not  atrophied,  he 
will  be  able  to  satisfy  his  own  ambitions. 

Mr.  Theodore  Kremer  likewise  shows  the  same  dissatis 
faction  over  being  forced  to  produce  such  dramas  as  "  Bertha, 
the  Sewing  Machine  Girl,"  "Fast  Life  in  New  York,"  "The 
Fatal  Wedding,"  and  "The  King  of  Bigamists."  He  out 
lines  the  melodramatic  formula  in  this  way:  "My  audiences 
are  all  from  Missouri;  they  want  to  be  shown;  unless  you 
show  them  first  they  will  not  believe.  In  the  play  now  being 

1  Since  this  writing,  Mr.  Woods  has  gone  over  the  line  in  "The 
Girl  and  the  Taxi,"  a  piece  full  of  dull  vulgarity. 


196  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

acted  by  Miss  Ethel  Banymore  ['Her  Sister'],  it  is  made 
clear  during  the  conversation  that  the  fortune-teller  and 
the  young  man  to  whom  she  is  engaged  first  met  in  a  train. 
Now  it  is  all  right  for  the  Broadway  audiences  to  hear  that 
the  two  met  in  a  train,  but  the  Eighth  Avenue  audiences 
have  to  be  shown  the  train  and  the  meeting.  Instead  of 
beginning  the  acquaintance  by  having  him  hand  her  a  paper, 
he  would  —  to  please  my  theatre  goers  —  have  to  fling  the 
paper  in  her  face.  She  would  be  insulted  and  address  him, 
'Sir!'  Then  he  would  apologize,  the  acquaintance  would 
begin,  and  it  could  then  ripen  into  love,  but  not  before.  And 
in  the  first  act  of  the  play  the  fortune-teller  would  have  to 
be  shot  on  to  the  stage  out  of  a  trap-door." 

Mr.  Kremer  was  once  regarded  as  the  Clyde  Fitch  of 
melodrama,  even  as  Owen  Davis  usurped  the  title  of 
Augustus  Thomas ;  and  should  one  examine  the  manuscripts 
of  each,  this  distinction  might  be  readily  seen,  for  Mr.  Davis's 
sensationalism  is  fraught  with  the  vigor  of  the  masculine, 
whereas  Mr.  Kremer  usually  deals  with  the  feminine.1  Yet 
despite  this  sex  view-point,  their  plays  are  worked  absolutely 
upon  the  same  lines;  their  heroes,  their  heroines,  their 
villains,  their  inconsistencies,  their  colloquial  humor,  their 
virtues  which  obtrude  to  such  a  degree  as  to  lack  virtue, 
their  seriousness  which  is  so  pronounced  as  to  be  humorous, 
are  all  of  the  same  color.  They  write  their  plays  according 
to  a  formula  decided  upon  between  themselves  and  their 
manager.  The  bill-board  posters  are  drawn  a  long  while 
before  pen  is  even  put  to  paper.  The  trap-doors,  the  bridges 
which  are  to  be  blown  up,  the  walls  which  are  to  be  scaled, 
the  instruments  of  torture  for  the  persecuted  heroines,  the 

1  Other  writers  of  melodrama  are  John  Oliver,  Hal  Reid,  Lem 
B.  Parker,  William  L.  Roberts,  Joseph  B.  Totten,  Joseph  Le  Brandt, 
and  Langdon  McCormack.  Al  Woods  is  taken  as  the  typical  pro 
ducer  of  melodramas;  there  were  others. 


CONCERNING  MELODRAMA  197 

freight  elevators  which  are  to  crush  out  the  lives  of  deserving 
characters,  the  elevated  trains  which  are  to  rush  upon  the 
prostrate  forms  of  gagged  and  insensible  girls,  —  all  these 
melodramatic  accessories  are  determined  upon  before  the 
manuscript  takes  shape.  In  fact,  there  is  little  shaping 
done  after  the  situations  are  decided  upon.  The  only  thing 
left  for  the  dramatist  is  to  fill  up  the  gaps  with  conversations 
which  lead,  however  irrelevantly,  to  the  situations  them 
selves.  Herein  are  to  be  found  those  elements  of  melodrama 
which  are  finally  to  be  the  cause  of  its  own  undoing.  For 
the  masses  are  being  better  educated,  are  —  because  of  the 
general  interest  in  drama  —  coming  under  influences  which 
raise  their  standards  of  living  and  soften  their  ideals.  One 
cannot  fool  the  public  all  the  time  at  the  theatre,  even  though 
it  be  on  Eighth  Avenue  or  on  the  Bowery.  They  have  been 
fooled  once,  twice,  thrice;  and  soon  they  will  reach  the 
point  where  the  manager  of  melodrama  will  in  turn  find 
himself  fooled.  That  is  the  hope  of  the  legitimate  melo 
drama.  Besides  which,  those  audiences  once  sated  with 
such  acting  now  find  their  tastes  gratified  by  the  moving 
picture  which  has  to  accentuate  action  in  order  to  be  seen. 

It  is  hard  to  analyze  any  of  the  plays  representing  this 
peculiar  type.  The  newspaper  accidents,  murders,  intrigues, 
the  electrical  and  mechanical  marvels  of  the  age,  are  all 
used.  There  is  the  conventional  drunkard  who  maltreats 
the  conventional  cripple;  there  is  the  one  character  from 
whom  all  humor  flows,  a  convention  which  marks  the  Yid 
dish  stage  as  well.  The  hero,  in  the  course  of  his  progress 
along  the  path  of  love,  disguises  himself  a  thousand  and  one 
times;  and  the  grand  finale  usually  comes  with  the  arrival 
of  a  man-of-war,  or  the  rushing  on  of  soldiers.  You  cannot 
outline  the  plot;  you  can  only  enumerate  the  situations. 

It  is  said  that  yellow  journalism  is  dependent  not  so  much 
upon  the  manner  in  which  a  leading  article  is  written,  as  on 


198  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

the  style  in  which  the  type  is  set  and  the  manner  in  which 
the  pictures  are  drawn. 

This  perhaps  might  likewise  be  claimed  for  melodrama. 
Once  win  a  bad  name,  and  it  is  hard  to  escape  it.  In  Mr. 
Belasco's" The  Girl  of  the  Golden  West"  the  wounded  hero 
is  hidden  by  the  girl  from  the  pursuing  Sheriff,  and  from 
where  he  lies  in  the  rafters  of  the  room,  blood  drips  upon  the 
floor  beneath.  Had  Mr.  Kremer  been  the  author  of  this 
piece,  one  would  have  smiled  at  it.  But  the  two-dollar  audi 
ences  accepted  it  because  it  was  Mr.  Belasco.  However, 
the  difference  between  "The  Girl  of  the  Golden  West," 
softened  by  some  attempt  at  subdued  acting,  and  "The 
Girl  of  the  Golden  West"  as  it  might  have  been  given  on  the 
Bowery  or  Eighth  Avenue,  would  lie  wholly  in  the  matter 
of  accentuation. 

Undoubtedly  the  melodrama  of  to-day  differs  from  the 
melodrama  of  yesterday;  and  that  it  has  fallen  into  dis 
favor  is  due  solely  to  the  fact  that  its  essential  characteristics 
have  been  misused.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  character 
istics,  per  se,  are  not  healthy  and  dramatic.  The  melodrama 
of  to-morrow  will  show  an  increased  consistency  on  the  part 
of  the  dramatist,  and  will  indicate  a  corresponding  improve 
ment  in  the  tastes  of  those  audiences  which  are  now  stigma 
tized  as  a  class,  but  which  differ  essentially  from  the  legiti 
mate  audiences  only  in  the  fact  that  one  pays  twenty-five 
cents  for  a  seat  while  the  other  pays  two  dollars. 

NOTE 

On  the  subject  of  melodrama,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  fol 
lowing: 

"Old  Melodrama."    H.  D.  Baker.    Belgra.,  50:331-39,  1883. 
"Possibilities  of  Melodrama."     Spec.,  56:1691. 
"Melodrama."     All  the  Year,  41:436. 
"  Melodrama."     See  Price's  "  Technique  of  the  Drama." 
"Melodrama."     Harry  James  Smith.    Atlantic,  March,  1907. 


CONCERNING  MELODRAMA  199 

"Melodrama."     Diccionario     Enciclopedico     Hispano-Americano 

de  Literatura,  Ciencias  y  Artes. 
"The  Taint  of  Melodrama  and  some  Recent  Books."    F.  T.  Cooper. 

Bookman,  22:630-35,  Feb.,  1906. 

"Melodrama."     Button  Cook.     "On  the  Stage,"  2:190. 
"Melodrama."     A.  B.  Walkley.     "Playhouse,"  170. 
"Melodrama."     International.    Dodd,  Mead. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   KINETOSCOPIC   THEATRE 


THE  kinetoscopic  theatre  is  at  the  parting  of  the  ways.  The 
crucial  point  has  arrived  when  it  shall  either  be  a  great  suc 
cess  or  an  absolute  failure.  In  New  York  alone,  people  have 
been  flocking  through  the  gaudy,  blatant  entrances  at  the 
rate  of  two  hundred  thousand  a  week.  In  eighteen  minutes 
they  have  been  given  a  production  of  "Romeo  and  Juliet" 
or  of  "  Othello  "  or  of  "  Francesca  da  Rimini,"  and  they  have 
gone  out,  only  to  be  superseded  by  a  crowd  as  big  and  just 
as  eager.  The  manager  of  the  mechanical  "show"  measures 
his  profit  by  the  rapidity  with  which  he  turns  out  one  audi 
ence  and  gathers  in  another. 

The  kinetoscopic  theatre,  however,  is  a  factor  to  be  reck 
oned  with.  It  may  be  made  a  source  of  good  or  a  source  of 
evil.  It  has  built  up  a  business  which  has  its  problems  similar 
to  those  confronting  the  theatre  managers.  It  requires  for 
its  success  an  intelligent  handling  on  the  part  of  the  manu 
facturer  of  the  pictures,  of  the  middleman,  and  of  the  show 
man.  Unfortunately,  with  the  rapid  increase  of  the  business, 
this  careful  thought  is  lacking.  Where  a  manufacturing 
firm  turns  out  nearly  two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  feet 
of  film  a  day,  it  is  natural  that  much  of  the  material  should 
be  of  inferior  quality.  There  is  ample  room  for  the  kineto 
scopic  dramatist. 

The  kinetoscopic  theatre  audience  speaks  in  terms  of 


THE  KINETOSCOPIC  THEATRE          201 

minutes  and  miles.  When  it  goes  to  see  "  Othello,"  it  ex 
pects  to  grasp  the  story  in  seventeen  minutes.  The  actors 
who  are  employed  to  perform  a  play  before  the  camera 
interpret  their  roles  in  terms  of  large  gestures,  of  abnormal 
facial  expression,  and  of  excessive  passion.  Not  so  very 
long  ago  a  stock  company  in  New  England  was  employed 
by  one  of  the  kinetoscopic  companies  to  play  for  them  the 
first  act  of  Belasco's  version  of  "Zaza."  Ordinarily,  this 
takes  from  forty-five  to  fifty  minutes  for  actual  performance, 
but  the  company  ran  through  all  the  "business"  in  fifteen 
minutes.  This  might  be  called  strenuous  acting  in  a  mechan 
ical  age.  Instead  of  having  to  pay  actors  for  performing 
"Romeo  and  Juliet,"  the  manager  of  the  nickelodeon  has  to 
pay  for  the  use  of  his  films  by  the  week,  being  charged  ac 
cording  to  the  number  of  feet  used  in  telling  the  story.  For 
example,  the  film  of  Boker's  "Francesca  da  Rimini,"  em 
bracing  seven  scenes,  has  a  length  of  990  feet,  "  Romeo  and 
Juliet"  915  feet,  and  "Macbeth"  835  feet.  A  time  will 
come,  therefore,  when  drama  for  the  kinetoscope  audiences 
will  literally  be  measured  by  the  mile. 

The  five-  and  ten-cent  theatres  sell  their  tickets  as  the 
drug  stores  dispose  of  their  soda  checks,  in  long  rolls.  Un 
fortunately  for  the  business,  there  are  many  sections  of  every 
large  city  where  two  or  three  such  theatres  are  found  in  one 
block,  following  the  example  of  the  saloon.  Competition 
is  healthy,  but  such  wildcat  speculation  is  ruinous  to  the 
small  manager.  He  thinks  that  to  have  his  machine  and  to 
rent  his  films  are  sufficient.  He  does  not  calculate  upon 
whether  or  not  the  location  is  good;  he  does  not  plan  how 
to  manage  his  audiences ;  he  believes  —  judging  by  the 
profits  that  others  have  made  —  that  the  show  will  run 
itself,  whereas  it  is  subject  to  the  same  rules  as  other  busi 
nesses.  The  average  exhibitor  of  moving-pictures  must 
either  show  brains  —  which  he  is  not  doing  —  or  else  go 


202  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

under.  Though  his  outfit  may  be  mechanical,  his  audience 
is  not;  the  people  have  definite  tastes  regarding  what  they 
see,  and  the  exhibitor,  the  manufacturer,  and  the  renter 
must  watch  this  public  in  order  to  sound  its  varying  desires. 

It  is  only  a  question  of  time  before  the  nickelodeon  is 
improved:  either  the  wildcat  manager  will  be  forced  out 
of  business,  or  he  will  have  to  conform  to  better  methods. 
A  failure  to-day  in  the  moving-picture  business  means  that 
the  man  who  owns  the  business  has  no  brains,  and  does  not 
know  the  people  of  the  locality  in  which  he  works.  For, 
after  all,  the  success  of  the  nickelodeon  represents  so  much 
human  response.  ^ 

Usually,  the  frequenters  of  these  cheap  places  are  those 
who  cannot  afford  more  expensive  pleasures;  those  who 
gather  around  the  white  tin  entrances  with  their  glaring 
posters  are  most  likely  children  who  cannot  even  afford 
five-cent  luxuries.  These  waifs  are  kept  at  bay  by  a  man 
flourishing  a  cane.  Sometimes,  when  business  is  slack, 
children  are  invited  in  to  help  keep  up  appearances. 

There  is  much  to  be  said  for  and  against  the  moving- 
picture.  Judiciously  used,  it  could  be  educational,  but  at 
best  it  is  mechanical,  it  lacks  individuality;  this  must  be 
kept  in  mind.  Its  usefulness  has  received  widespread 
recognition.  The  government  at  Washington  has  its  film 
department;  the  moving-picture  serves  as  record  for  military 
manoeuvres  and  naval  displays.  A  catalogue  records  the 
title  for  a  film  twenty-seven  feet  long :  "  A  German  Torpedo 
Flotilla  in  Action,"  taken  by  special  command  of  Kaiser 
Wilhelm.  In  New  York,  the  Museum  of  Natural  History 
is  experimenting  with  the  cinematograph,  picturing  the 
flight  of  birds,  the  habitat  of  bears. 

The  moving-picture  as  an  amusement  lacks  the  human 
element,  yet  the  response  it  creates  is  human.  It  can  never 
be  art;  it  can  only  be  a  representation  of  art,  and  as  such 


THE  KINETOSCOPIC  THEATRE         203 

it  must  be  directed.  The  Victor  talking  machines  have 
ground  forth  the  speeches  of  Taft  and  of  Bryan;  the  bio- 
graph  has  projected  the  motion  of  the  National  Conven 
tions.  Bring  the  phonograph  and  the  biograph  together, 
and  still  the  live  element  is  absent.  For  this  reason  it  is  one 
of  the  greatest  enemies  to  the  theatre,  which  is  a  live  insti 
tution,  presenting  plays  in  human  fashion. 

At  best  the  nickelodeon  audiences  are  casual  groups :  they 
are  not  held  together  by  any  effective  bond  of  common 
interest  or  large  idea.  Their  drama  is  told  in  seeable  action, 
and  there  is  little  or  no  time  spent  on  other  than  elemental 
idea  or  sentiment.  That  is  a  danger  which  only  an  educa 
tional  grip  of  the  situation  could  stop.  But  the  boys  and 
girls  of  the  tenements,  their  mothers  and  fathers,  go  of  an 
evening  because  the  diversion  is  stimulating  without  effort, 
even  though  there  is  a  strain  upon  the  eyes. 

The  manufacturer  of  mechanical  music,  of  mechanical 
drama,  has  an  ethical  responsibility.  It  lies  between  points 
admirably  indicated  by  two  scenes  which  are  uppermost  in 
my  mind.  One  Sunday  morning,  in  the  Blue  Ridge  Moun 
tains,  overlooking  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  I  visited  a  cabin 
perched  above  a  forest  of  trees;  grandmother,  grandfather, 
mother  and  father,  son  and  daughter,  and  a  string  of  children 
sat  grouped  around  a  phonograph,  listening  to  some  country 
man  telling  his  comical  city  experiences.  Then  the  father, 
in  flannel  shirt  and  heavy  boots,  his  lined  and  roughened 
face  aglow  with  pleasure,  announced  that  a  church  choir 
would  sing  to  them.  Despite  the  grating  sound,  these 
simple  folk  sat  awed  by  the  beauty  of  the  quartette.  The 
manufacturers  measure  popular  taste  by  the  music  halls, 
and,  unfortunately,  not  by  the  native  temperament.1 

1  In  passing,  it  is  well  to  note  that  the  phonograph  is  now  being 
used  to  record  the  negro  folk-songs  and  the  tribal  chants  of 
Indians. 


204  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

The  other  picture  is  on  Avenue  C,  in  New  York,  in  a 
crowded  block,  where  people  must  elbow  their  way,  where 
there  is  never  quiet,  and  never  a  blade  of  grass.  The  Herr 
Professor  in  charge  of  one  of  these  houses  would  have  nature 
scenes  brought  from  the  topmost  mountain,  from  the  inner 
most  depth  of  the  American  forest,  to  offset  the  cramping 
city  view  of  tenement  upon  tenement.  Such  is  the  possi 
bility,  yet  such  is  not  the  accomplishment,  except  in  this 
one  instance.  The  moving-picture  business  needs  in 
telligent  guiding;  that  is  its  one  hope.  Otherwise,  it  be 
comes  a  menace,  socially,  morally,  and  ethically.  What  is 
now  urgent  is  to  prevent  the  vitiating  effect  of  undesirable 
performances.  The  nickelodeon  without  an  idea  behind  it  is 
a  menace  to  the  neighborhood.  The  idea  must  be  inserted, 
for  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  moving-picture  has  come  to 
stay.  The  visual  sense  must  be  supplemented  by  a  mental 
stimulus.  Intellectually,  the  five-cent  audience  is  worthy 
of  a  higher  form  of  amusement  than  the  moving-picture 
show  can  supply.  It  is  the  personality  of  its  manager,  with 
his  ideas  and  his  ideals,  that  raises  the  business  to  a  dif 
ferent  plane.  And  the  Herr  Professor,  with  his  educational 
aspirations  and  his  knowledge  of  what  the  people  like,  found 
that  being  a  conscientious  nickelodeon  manager  brought 
profit  in  more  ways  than  one. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  exhibitor  has  to  deal 
with  the  manufacturer  through  a  middleman.  There  is  a 
film  trust,  just  as  there  is  a  theatrical  trust,  and  the 
exhibitor  is  not  allowed  to  rent  directly  from  the  manu 
facturers.  There  are  two  dangers  consequent  upon  this 
arrangement.  The  exhibitor  often  has  no  choice  but  to  take 
what  the  renter  gives  him.  If  he  receives  a  good  subject 
one  day,  he  has  to  expect  a  poor,  a  sensational,  a  common 
subject  the  next.  This  would  be  obviated,  provided  the 
exhibitor  could  select  his  films  for  each  show  directly  from 


THE  KINETOSCOPIC  THEATRE          205 

the  manufacturer.  To  judge  by  investigations,  it  will  be 
found  that  the  exhibitor  has  not  yet  discovered  that  he  is 
not  obliged  to  take  what  he  does  not  wish.  The  trust  situ 
ation,  as  it  confronts  the  kinetoscope  business,  is  a  struggle 
carried  on  between  several  organized  manufacturers  on  the 
one  hand  and  a  number  of  independent  firms  on  the  other. 
The  exhibitor,  therefore,  has  reached  that  stage  when  he 
grabs  what  he  can  get.  A  censorship  bureau,  begun  in  New 
York,  but  of  wide  scope,  now  gives  better  advantages  to 
the  small  exhibitor,  inasmuch  as  by  its  actions  it  is  weeding 
out  that  which  will  be  harmful,  and  demanding  higher  grade 
films. 

II 

The  nickelodeon  theatre  has  its  press-agent,  and  this  press 
agent  has  his  particular  vocabulary,  filled  with  descriptive 
adjectives  that  express  motion.  The  Moving  Picture  World, 
devoted  to  the  interests  of  animated  photographs,  quotes 
a  sample  of  such  literature:  "To  hear  the  voice,  to  catch 
every  sound  and  intonation  of  every  word,  and  see  the  people 
in  life  size  moving  before  your  eyes,  and  yet  realise  there 
is  not  a  single  person  there  —  it  seems  like  some  phantom 
of  the  brain,  an  hallucination,  and  one  is  almost  tempted  to 
rush  to  the  stage  and  grapple  with  the  ghostly  actors  as  one 
is  moved  to  cry  out  in  the  vividness  of  a  dream." 

After  a  performance  is  completed,  the  audience  is  supposed 
to  pass  out.  In  some  places  the  management  delicately  re 
minds  them  of  this  fact  by  repeating  one  or  two  of  the  pictures 
previously  seen.  In  other  places,  however,  such  a  method 
is  entirely  too  subtle,  and  so  an  official,  known  as  "  the  chaser," 
proceeds  down  the  middle  aisle  doing  his  work.  Most  of 
the  theatres  are  managed  in  practically  the  same  way. 
Should  you  visit  several  of  them  you  would  find  a  certain 
monotony,  which  is  one  of  the  insurmountable  facts  about 


206  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

moving-pictures  —  the  monotony  of  mechanical  interpreta 
tion. 

But  the  moving-picture  has  in  many  respects  come  to  stay. 
The  newspaper  reporter,  for  instance,  has  a  rival,  since  it 
has  now  become  generally  recognized  that  wherever  an 
event  of  moment  is  taking  place,  side  by  side  with  the  news 
paper  man  may  generally  be  found  the  moving-picture  man 
with  his  outfit.  I  have  been  told  that  in  England  such  a 
phrase  as  "the  animated  newspaper"  has  been  coined. 
King  Edward  VII.  once  opened  an  exhibition  at  South  Ken 
sington;  two  hours  and  a  half  after  the  ceremony,  a  matinee 
audience  twelve  miles  away  was  witnessing  the  occurrence 
by  means  of  the  kinetoscope.  The  reporter  speaks  of  his 
Sunday  feature  in  the  newspaper.  In  the  same  sense  the 
moving-picture  man  is  accomplishing  similar  results  by 
his  films,  which  show  the  surrender  of  Port  Arthur,  the  riots 
in  St.  Petersburg  —  led  by  Father  Capon  —  and  the  assas 
sination  of  the  Grand  Duke  Sergius. 

Already  the  operators  of  the  kinetoscope  have  formed 
themselves  into  an  organization  known  as  "Local  No.  23 
of  the  Theatrical,  Electrical,  Calcium  Picture  and  Project 
ing  Machine  Operators'  Union  of  New  York."  Everywhere 
in  this  moving-picture  business,  there  seems  to  be  organi 
zation,  but  there  are  many  entering  the  field  who  have  no  idea 
as  to  how  the  work  should  be  run. 

Sometimes  when  the  films  are  particularly  fine,  the  man 
ager  raises  his  price  from  five  to  ten  cents,  just  as  the  theatre 
manager  raises  his  price  when  Bernhardt  comes  to  this 
country.  On  the  New  York  East  Side  during  Easter  Week 
the  whole  Passion  of  Christ  was  given  in  moving-pictures. 
The  performance  took  more  than  an  hour  and  was  accom 
panied  by  a  lecture  outlining  the  chief  incidents.  Altogether 
the  films,  divided  into  four  parts,  amounted  to  three  thou 
sand,  one  hundred  and  fourteen  feet  in  length.  Despite  the  fact 


THE  KINETOSCOPIC  THEATRE          207 

that  this  nickelodeon  theatre  was  situated  in  the  Jewish  quar 
ter,  the  manager  told  me  that  during  the  week  he  exhibited 
the  film,  his  business  had  been  larger  than  ever  before. 

I  have  used  the  phrase  "exhibited  the  film."  This  means 
that,  according  to  the  way  in  which  the  business  is  managed, 
the  films  travel  from  point  to  point,  just  as  a  stock  company 
would  go  from  theatre  to  theatre.  A  film  has  its  "route," 
just  as  a  traveling  company  has  its  "route/'  and  I  have  been 
told  by  many  operators:  "My  'Way  Down  East'  film,  or 
my  *  Ben-Hur'  film  arrives  to-morrow  evening."  The  Ameri- 

Ican  dramatists  have  sought  to  protect  themselves  through 
a  revision  of  the  copyright  law,  and  a  suit  once  pended  over 
the  kinetoscope  use  of  "Ben-Hur."  When  one  considers 
that  we  are  applying  human  terms  to  the  mechanical  facts, 
the  humor  of  the  situation  is  very  striking. 

In  Paris,  the  Pathe  Freres  —  realizing  the  essential  right 
of  the  French  dramatist  to  his  own  property  —  have  done 
the  next  best  thing;  they  have  arranged  with  members  of 
the  Society  of  French  Dramatists  and  Authors  to  write  special 
plays  for  use  solely  by  the  kinetoscope.  If  the  talking- 
machines  may  preserve  the  voices  of  our  opera  singers,  why 
may  not  the  kinetoscope  preserve  the  acting  of  our  actors? 
For,  to  carry  the  educational  feature  one  step  further,  the 
time  may  not  be  far  off  when  our  dramatic  schools  will  be 
instructed  by  Mme.  Bernhardt  and  Coquelin  from  the  moving- 
picture  screen. 

Unfortunately,  in  our  rush  to  introduce  the  moving-pic 
tures  into  this  country  —  a  rush  that  is  creating  a  very 
thoughtless  competition  in  the  trade  —  our  manufacturers 
are  forgetting  the  ethics  of  the  business.  They  have  not 
as  yet  compromised  in  the  French  manner  with  the  American 
dramatist,  though  they  will  be  forced  later  on  to  do  so.  But 
they  have  been  taking  without  permission  the  popular 
successes  of  the  moment,  and  turning  them  by  the  whole- 


208  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

sale  into  kinetoscopic  shows.  That  is  why,  in  its  last  session, 
the  Copyright  Committee  called  before  it  many  representa 
tives  of  the  American  Dramatists'  Club,  especially  those 
who  were  suffering  by  reason  of  the  kinetoscopic  perform 
ances  of  their  plays.  William  A.  Brady  gave  his  evidence 
as  to  "Way  Down  East":  "My  play,"  so  he  said,  "is  now 
being  printed  on  films  of  from  a  hundred  to  two  hundred 
copies  a  week,  by  a  company  which  is  a  member  of  this 
[moving-picture]  Trust  in  Chicago;  and  yesterday  one  of 
my  companies,  composed  of  thirty-five  people  —  men  and 
women  —  was  forced  off  the  road  and  sent  back  to  New  York. 
They  never  can  play  again,  because  in  nearly  every  one- 
night  stand  in  this  country,  'Way  Down  East'  is  being 
presented  on  every  street  corner,  presented  from  a  stolen 
manuscript  by  a  man  who  went  into  one  of  our  theatres 
and  took  down  a  copy  of  our  play,  and  sold  it  to  this  picture 
firm  which  is  now  destroying  my  property."  At  the  same 
committee  meeting,  Charles  Klein  spoke  of  "The  Music 
Master"  which  had  been  presented  at  a  nickelodeon  house 
on  Fourteenth  Street.  This  competition  with  his  own  play 
hurt  the  gallery  receipts  at  the  Academy  of  Music;  and  such 
a  condition  is  ruination  in  many  instances  to  the  manager, 
since  the  profits  of  a  theatre  are  almost  always  to  be  found 
in  the  gallery. 

During  the  course  of  this  conference  between  legislators 
and  theatrical  people,  it  was  brought  out  that  contracts  had 
been  made  in  France  by  moving-picture  manufacturers,  with 
Edmond  Rostand,  Henri  Lavedan,  and  Alfred  Capus,  for  the 
writing  of  special  plays,  the  former  to  do  three  fairy  dramas, 
of  which  the  first  will  be  "The  Sleeping  Beauty,"  while 
Lavedan  will  write  an  historical  drama,  dealing  with  the 
Due  de  Guise,  and  Capus  will  depict  scenes  of  financial  life 
in  Paris. 

The  manager  of  the  nickelodeon  has  his  legal  problems 


THE  KINETOSCOPIC  THEATRE        209 

to  contend  with.  There  is  a  license  to  be  obtained.  There 
is  the  consideration  of  whether  he  will  be  allowed  to  intro 
duce  vaudeville  into  his  performance  without  being  required 
to  pay  for  a  theatre  license.  There  are  laws  to  be  considered 
that  bring  him  in  contact  with  the  Department  of  Electricity, 
the  Fire  Department,  the  Tenement  House  Department, 
and  the  Department  of  Licenses.  He  has  to  struggle  with 
the  insurance  companies,  which  look  askance  at  the  risk.  He 
is  now  being  menaced  by  a  law  that  is  looming  up  before 
him,  preventing  a  nickelodeon  theatre  from  being  situated 
in  any  tenement  house  where  the  risk  jeopardizes  the  lives 
of  families  living  above. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  managers  of  these  small  amuse 
ment  places  have  to  be  watched  carefully.  It  has  been  found 
that  some  will  take  out  licenses  as  operators,  and  then  will 
transfer  these  licenses  to  small  boys  who  are  employed  in 
their  stead  at  lower  salaries.  In  New  Jersey,  to  cite  one 
instance,  boys  of  eleven  years  old  were  reported  as  running 
the  machine.  The  sanitary  condition  of  the  places  has  to 
be  supervised,  and  the  Building  Department  has  found 
difficulty  in  making  the  managers  comply  with  the  laws 
regulating  the  exits.  So  many  foreigners  are  now  entering 
the  business  that  it  has  been  found  necessary  to  agitate 
the  adoption  of  a  special  bill  requiring  all  managers  and 
operators  to  be  citizens  of  the  United  States,  as  well  as 
residents  of  the  community  in  which  they  work.  Massachu 
setts  has  been  markedly  active  in  passing  ordinances.  One 
in  particular  has  touched  upon  the  greatest  weakness  con 
nected  with  the  kinetoscope  as  an  educational  or  amusement 
consideration.  I  refer  to  the  strain  upon  the  sight.  After 
visiting  a  number  of  these  places  in  succession,  subjecting  the 
eyes  to  two  hours'  continual  use,  it  will  be  found  that  the  per 
sistent  flutter  of  the  film  not  only  tires  but  pains  the  muscles 
of  the  eyes.  After  careful  investigation  by  some  of  the  lead- 


210  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

ing  physicians  in  Boston,  the  Massachusetts  Legislature 
passed  a  bill  requiring  that  five  minutes  of  light  must  flood 
the  theatre  after  every  twenty  minutes  of  pictures.  This 
requirement,  if  it  is  generally  passed  through  the  States,  as 
it  should  be,  will  hurt  many  small  places  which  are  only  long, 
dark  stores  supplied  with  a  number  of  seats  but  with  no 
ventilation  and  no  windows. 

Inventors  are  busily  engaged  in  trying  to  overcome  the 
defects  in  the  moving-pictures.  It  has  been  found  that  the 
flutter  of  the  film  on  the  screen  is  due  to  one  of  two  causes: 
either  the  strip  is  an  old  one,  or  there  are  not  a  sufficient 
number  of  pictures  covering  the  different  movements.  By 
this  latter  statement  is  meant  that  were  more  pictures  taken 
per  second,  there  would  be  less  apparent  flutter  of  the  film. 
A  French  firm  has  just  avoided  any  possibility  of  eye  strain 
by  having  their  films  contain  many  more  pictures  to  the 
second,  thus  reducing  to  a  minimum  the  apparent  gap  from 
point  to  point  of  action,  and  thus  doing  away  altogether 
with  any  jar.  Another  important  change  has  been  effected. 
Most  of  the  pictures  thrown  upon  the  white  screen  appear 
flat;  there  is  no  atmosphere  behind  objects  seen.  In  other 
words,  the  figures  look  as  though  they  were  being  witnessed 
by  a  person  with  one  eye  closed.  Perfect  perspective  will 
soon  be  given  to  the  kinetoscope  theatre  performances 
through  a  binocular  effect. 

Still  another  improvement  will  come.  That  will  be  in  the 
reproduction  of  natural  color  upon  the  screen,  the  applica 
tion  of  color  photography  to  the  kinetoscope.  The  other 
improvement  which  is  now  a  fact  will  perhaps  mean  more 
in  a  general  way  to  the  operator  than  the  others.  In  run 
ning  his  machine,  he  has  always  been  fearful  of  fire;  the 
slightest  defect  in  the  instrument  would  result  in  his  film 
catching  fire  from  the  electric  spark.  The  companies  are 
now  sending  out  non-inflammable  material. 


THE  KINETOSCOPIC  THEATRE          211 

The  important  point  regarding  the  moving-picture  is 
that  it  has  educational  possibilities.  The  five-cent  audience 
is  not  only  a  clean  audience,  but  is  ambitious  as  well.  The 
manufacturers  of  films  have  thus  far  produced  much  that 
is  trash,  especially  in  their  comic,  or  what  they  call  harmless, 
scenes.  They  have  unnecessarily  sensational  stories,  show 
ing  that  much  of  their  object  is  to  supply  a  wildcat  demand 
rather  than  to  improve  that  demand.  The  five-cent  audi 
ence  is  always  interested  in  desirable  subjects  that  will 
describe  the  occupations,  customs,  architecture,  and  chief 
racial  characteristics  of  the  nations. 

The  five-cent  audience  is  interested  in  wild-animal  life 
and  in  historical  views  much  more  than  in  the  ridiculous 
comedies  that  are  not  so  suggestive  as  they  are  inane.  Of 
course  the  police  have  been  obliged  at  times  to  put  a  stop 
to  certain  subjects  thrown  upon  the  screen,  not  because 
of  their  outward  suggestiveness  but  because  of  their  lack 
of  healthy  moral.  The  Children's  Court  has  had  to  con 
sider  cases  of  grand  larceny  inspired  by  the  moving-pictures 
of  a  burglar.  There  have  been  petty  thefts  committed  by 
children  who  for  five  cents  have  been  taught  the  best  way 
of  getting  what  belongs  to  others.  But  as  a  general  rule  the 
nickelodeons,  or  moving-picture  theatres,  of  which  there  are 
some  three  or  four  hundred  in  New  York  City,  present  a 
harmless  bill  of  fare,  if  not  a  very  educational  one. 

After  examining  a  number  of  catalogues  of  the  different 
manufacturers,  and  bearing  continually  in  mind  that  every 
moving-picture  has  been  the  result  of  actual  performance, 
one  is  surprised  to  find  the  dangers  that  kinetoscopic  actors 
have  to  risk  in  order  to  depict  a  given  story.  Every  manu 
facturer  has  his  paid  company  of  actors,  and  these  have  to 
be  richly  costumed  just  as  though  they  were  to  give  a  per 
formance  on  a  regular  stage.  Historical  plays  are  accurately 
mounted.  Not  only  is  scenery  prepared,  but  the  actors  are 


212  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

likewise  taken  into  the  country  where  different  localities  are 
agreed  upon  for  different  situations.  The  trouble  and  expense 
in  this  respect  are  great.  Only  recently  in  Rochester,  two 
automobiles  met  with  an  accident  while  rushing  through 
the  street  illustrating  for  the  kinetoscope  the  abduction  of  a 
girl.  So  that  a  manufacturer  finds  more  profit  in  sending 
his  photographers  traveling  throughout  the  world,  making 
pictures  of  pageants,  historical  scenes,  military  and  naval 
spectaculars,  than  in  mounting  rich  productions  himself. 

The  kinetoscope,  however,  has  had  to  adopt  many  methods 
of  the  theatre.  One  of  the  chief  resorts  is  dramatization, 
so  we  find  one  concern  making  arrangements  with  the 
author  and  publisher  of  "Monsieur  Beaucaire"  and  with 
the  author  and  manager  of  "  Raffles,"  and  with  the  publisher 
and  author  of  "  Sherlock  Holmes "  for  the  privilege  of  dram 
atizing.  The  kinetoscope  dramatist,  so  to  speak,  takes 
wherever  he  can  find.  He  outlines  the  story  of  "Treasure 
Island;"  he  adapts  Boucicault's  "The  Shaughraun;"  he 
makes  a  scenario  of  "Dora,"  based  on  Tennyson;  he  mod 
ernizes  "Oliver  Twist;"  he  receives  suggestions  for  Belasco's 
"Madame  Butterfly;"  he  turns  Hawtrey's  "Messenger 
from  Mars"  into  a  sentimental  tale  of  a  selfish  man;  he 
takes  the  motive  of  "Othello"  and  puts  it  into  a  story  that 
is  the  husk  without  the  spirit  of  Shakespeare.  In  some  cases, 
where  a  film  has  been  particularly  popular,  he  is  forced  to 
write  a  sequel.  All  this  is  not  specially  original  work,  but 
the  moving-picture  man  expects  eventually  to  encourage  the 
high  art  of  the  pantomimist.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that 
eventually  the  American  dramatist  will  himself  write  small 
plays  for  the  kinetoscope  that  will  accentuate  pantomime. 


THE  KINETOSCOPIC  THEATRE          213 

III 

All  of  these  subjects  are  thrown  upon  the  screen  for  an 
eager  audience.  They  are  supplemented  very  often  by  a 
word  of  explanation  from  the  manager,  or  by  a  short  descrip 
tion  printed  on  the  film.  Sometimes  the  phonograph  is 
called  into  use,  but  as  yet  it  has  not  been  very  successfully 
employed.  The  manager  must  know  his  pictures,  so  that 
if  a  horse  dashes  upon  the  roadway  he  can  imitate  the  clat 
ter  of  hoofs;  if  a  man  falls  from  the  roof  he  must  represent 
the  crash,  just  as  whenever  a  clown  falls  at  the  circus  the 
drum  in  the  orchestra  measures  the  extent  of  his  hurt.  An 
intelligent  manager  could  inject  much  humor  into  his  pic 
tures  from  behind  the  screen,  but  he  must  be  careful  to  keep 
the  moral  tone  clean.  He  must  also  at  times  watch  the 
realism  of  his  play.  In  Chicago,  according  to  the  Moving 
Picture  World,  the  police  stopped  the  performance  of  "  Mac 
beth,"  and  the  report  of  the  officer  of  the  law  is  worth  quoting : 
"I  am  not  taking  issue  with  Shakespeare,"  he  said.  "As  a 
writer  he  was  far  from  reproach,  but  he  never  looked  into  the 
distance  and  saw  that  his  plays  were  going  to  be  interpreted 
for  the  five-cent  theatre.  Shakespeare  has  a  way  of  making 
gory  things  endurable,  because  there  is  so  much  of  art  and 
finish.  But  we  cannot  reproduce  that.  .  .  .  When  it  gets 
on  the  canvas,  it  is  worse  than  the  bloodiest  melodrama 
ever." 

The  stabbing  scene  in  the  play  is  not  predominant,  but 
in  a  picture  show  it  is  the  feature.  By  outdoing  melodrama, 
the  moving-picture  has  been  one  of  the  agents  to  kill  melo 
drama  of  the  violent  kind.  In  the  play,  the  stabbing  is  for 
gotten  amidst  the  other  exciting  and  artful  and  artistic 
creations  that  divert  the  imagination.  On  the  canvas,  you 
see  the  dagger  enter  and  come  out,  the  blood  flow,  and  the 
wound  that  is  left. 


214  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Thus  it  is  essential  to  remember  that  in  externalizing  a 
story  for  the  kinetoscope,  the  bare  details  through  their  very 
nature  sometimes  become  over-accentuated. 

The  moving-picture  has  undoubtedly  hurt  the  theatrical 
business.  It  steals  the  spoken  drama  and  reduces  it  to 
motion.  Every  road  company  has  its  tale  to  tell  of  business 
ruined  by  the  kinetoscope;  every  vaudeville  house  is  forced 
to  open  its  doors  to  celluloid  drama.  And  when  summer 
arrives,  the  legitimate  playhouses  turn  themselves  into  nickel 
odeons.  In  a  way  all  this  is  a  menace  to  the  American 
dramatist. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

SHOULD  THE  POETIC  DRAMA  BE  DRAMATIZED? 

WE  are  being  constantly  reminded  of  the  inadequacy  of 
the  so-called  poetic  drama  to  fill  the  essential  demands  of 
the  theatre;  and,  whenever  the  poetic  drama  fails  to  hold 
the  boards,  we  are  prone  to  deplore  the  insufficiency  of 
public  taste.  Yet  we  are  servile  imitators,  and  show  no 
willingness  to  look  behind  the  traditions  with  which  we  are 
often  shackled.  There  is  a  preconceived  notion  that  some 
thing  is  lacking  in  the  person  who  declaims  against  the 
literary  drama,  the  closet  drama,  or  the  poetic  drama.  Can 
dor  makes  us  confess  that  there  is  as  much  ignorance  on  the 
part  of  those  who  are  against  as  of  those  who  are  for  it. 
The  mistaken  attitude  assumed  by  both  ranks  is  founded  upon 
a  contradiction  of  terms  and  upon  the  identification  of  the 
conventions  of  a  type  with  the  essence  of  the  poetic  principle. 

In  our  consideration,  we  would  not  proceed  as  far  as  Poe 
in  that  peculiar  essay  of  his  on  "  The  American  Drama/' 
where  he  suggests  that  "  the  first  thing  necessary  is  to  burn 
or  bury  the  'old  models/  and  to  forget,  as  quickly  as 
possible,  that  ever  a  play  has  been  penned;"  we  are  too 
thoroughly  in  advocacy  of  an  historical  perspective  for 
dramatic  criticism.  But  we  do  believe  with  Coleridge  that 
"  it  is  to  be  lamented  that  we  judge  of  books  (as  well  as  of 
plays)  by  books,  instead  of  referring  what  we  read  to  our 
own  experience." 

All  things  of  the  theatre  should  be  applied  to  the  theatre. 


216  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

An  unactable  drama  is  a  contradiction  of  terms;  a  poetic 
drama  is  simply  one  phase  of  a  larger  and  more  inclusive 
art.  Very  recently  a  college  professor  declared  that  the 
"  playhouse  has  no  monopoly  of  the  dramatic  form,"  while 
another,  in  just  refutation,  called  attention  to  the  fact  that 
Byron,  Landor,  Shelley,  Coleridge,  Johnson,  Tennyson,  and 
Browning,  whose  dramas  are  relegated  to  the  closet,  if  not 
to  the  shelf,  wrote  for  the  stage  and  failed. 

There  is  only  one  thing  intended  for  the  playhouse,  and 
that  is  —  drama;  whatever  its  form,  whatever  its  content, 
it  must  satisfy  the  conditions  through  which  it  has  elected 
to  reach  the  human  spirit.  To  the  university  man  we  would 
say  that  poetry  has  no  monopoly  of  the  poetic  spirit;  that 
conventions  have  deceived  us  into  believing  the  poetic 
drama  to  consist  of  such  rhythm,  of  such  rhyme,  of  such 
length,  when  in  reality  its  vital  measure  is  the  exaltation  of 
the  human  spirit  in  the  light  of  truth  and  beauty. 

The  modern  theatre  is  focussing  its  rays  closer  and  closer 
upon  life  —  never  upon  anything  else;  it  makes  no  differ 
ence  whether  you  are  outside  the  veil  with  Ibsen  peering 
in;  or  inside  the  veil  with  Maeterlinck  peering  out  —  the 
active  being,  spirit,  intellect,  or  flesh  is  concerned  with  its 
protagonist. 

According  to  our  idea,  the  poet  has  not  only  misinterpreted 
the  functions  of  drama,  but  has  limited  the  essence,  of  the 
poetic  to  a  manner  of  expression;  he  has  not  only  been 
content  to  deal  with  life  in  the  abstract,  but  he  has  departed 
from  life  in  search  for  beauty.  Despite  these  conditions 
and  these  counter-elements,  we  are  safe  in  claiming,  none 
theless,  that  the  time  is  propitious  for  the  poetic  drama. 
It  will  never  come  from  the  poet  who  lacks  the  dramatic 
sense,  but  it  will  be  born  of  the  dramatist  in  whom  the  poetic 
impulse  is  quick. 

Whenever  a  poet  turns  playwright,  we  may  be  sure  that 


Photo,  by  Byrd  Studio,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

JOSEPHINE  PRESTON  PEABODY 


DRAMATIZING  POETIC  DRAMA         217 

we  are  to  be  treated  to  a  baffling  maze  of  half-formed  ideas. 
It  does  not  do  to  have  the  dramatist  pause  in  his  essential 
stage  structure  in  order  to  listen  to  his  own  music.  The 
stage  is  progressive,  not  contemplative;  direct,  not  indefinite; 
particular,  not  general.  Remove  from  it  the  power  to  hold, 
and  it  is  no  longer  a  theatre  in  the  sense  that  people  would 
have  it. 

Such  drama,  I  claim,  is  twice  removed  in  its  relationship 
to  the  bare  boards  of  the  stage,  by  reason  of  its  surcharged 
beauty  and  by  reason  of  its  classic  form.  For  the  actor,  it 
is  only  an  exercise  in  reading;  for  the  audience,  it  has  the 
heavy  odor  of  crowded  flowers,  badly  arranged.  The  poet, 
turned  dramatist,  is  condescending  toward  the  stage;  and 
he  has  added  nothing  to  the  theatre  that  it  did  not  already 
know;  has  gained  nothing  from  the  theatre,  even  though 
there  was  much  to  gain.  He  has  put  poetry  into  the  form  of 
drama,  without  having  any  drama  in  his  poetry. 

When  Josephine  Preston  Peabody's  *  "  The  Piper  "  won 
the  Stratford  prize,  and  was  played  at  the  Shakespeare 
Memorial  Theatre  by  Benson  and  his  company,  in  the 
Spring  of  1910,  many  people  proclaimed  that  blank  verse 
had  come  into  its  own  again.  No  manager  in  America  before 
then  would  touch  it  for  presentation,  and  it  was  once  de 
clined  by  the  New  Theatre,  which  hastened  later  to  pro 
duce  it.  There  is  much  to  say  in  extenuation  of  the  American 
attitude.  "The  Piper"  is  drama  twice  removed  —  because 
of  its  beauty,  and  because  of  its  form,  loosely  knit.  There 
is  also  a  pronounced  indefiniteness  of  idea. 

Naturally,  Mrs.  Marks  (Miss  Peabody)  has  some  justi 
fication  in  her  confidence  that  she  has  given  the  stage  a 
notable  poetic  contribution;  naturally  she  has  theories 
regarding  the  province  of  poetry  on  the  stage.  But  her 

1  Mrs.  Marks  is  also  the  author  of  "Marlowe"  (1901)  and  "The 
Wings"  (1905). 


218  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

technical  ideas  are  wrong,  and  not  in  accord  with  the  mod 
ern  practice  of  the  theatre.  Maybe,  as  a  poet,  she  is  right 
in  her  practice,  but  it  is  a  rock  upon  which  she  will  even 
tually  founder.  She  will  there  find  the  battered  wrecks 
of  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich's  "Judith  of  Bethulia,"  of  Percy 
Mackaye's  "Sappho  and  Phaon,"  wrecks  beautiful  in  their 
dramatic  inertia,  clogged  with  the  passive  beauty  of  simile 
and  metaphor. 

"The  Piper,"  as  Mrs.  Marks  conceived  it,  had  a  supreme 
evidence  of  vitality  about  it  —  its  permanent  legendary 
character.  We  have  the  nursery  interpretation  of  it  in 
picture  books,  in  Jacob's  "More  English  Fairy  Tales"  and 
in  Lang's  "Red  Fairy  Book";  and  we  have  Browning's 
poem.  But  the  structure  of  the  piece,  as  Mrs.  Marks  con 
ceived  it,  detracts  from  the  Piper's  simple  nature,  from 
his  real  historic  character.  In  search  for  some  deep  phi 
losophy  of  life,  the  author  mixes  many  minor  stories  of  her 
own  invention  into  the  main  threads  of  an  attractive  legend, 
and  meanders  through  long  and  weary  speeches. 

"The  Piper"  is  no  play  in  the  theatre  sense,  even  though 
the  personality  of  such  an  actress  as  Miss  Edith  Wynne 
Matthison  has  helped  to  make  it  a  success.  It  might  have 
been  greater,  had  Mrs.  Marks  not  been  the  poet  so  utterly; 
had  she  been  willing  to  thrash  out  the  meaning,  and  to  remain 
constant  to  one  line  of  thought.  And  that  is  the  danger  of 
poetry  on  the  stage;  it  is  too  discursive  and  too  full  of  un 
essential  beauty.  For  this  reason,  Mr.  Moody,  who  had 
met  with  success  in  "The  Great  Divide"  (1907)  because 
of  its  theatrical  effectiveness,  met  with  failure  in  "The 
Faith  Healer"  (1909)  because  of  its  vagueness. 

To-day  two  facts  are  evident :  the  realism  which  is  sym 
bolized  by  Ibsen,  and  the  symbolism  which  is  realized  by 
Maeterlinck  have  not  only  intensified  dramatic  material 
and  narrowed  external  action,  but  they  have  opened  a 


DRAMATIZING  POETIC  DRAMA         219 

channel  for  the  actor  which  only  his  genius  can  compass. 
The  worn-out  models  of  the  theatre  have  been  confiscated, 
along  with  the  old-fashioned  theatrical  methods  of  inter 
pretation.  Introspective  significance  has  decreased  the 
violent  reaction,  and  the  most  beautiful  acting  has  now  be 
come  the  most  quiet  acting. 

How  many  of  us  have  returned  again  and  again  to  Lamb's 
essay  on  the  "Tragedies  of  Shakespeare,"  in  which  occurs 
the  significant  passage,  anent  the  impracticableness  of 
playing  " Hamlet " —  a  passage  which  reads:  "Nine  parts 
in  ten  of  what  Hamlet  does  are  transactions  between  himself 
and  his  moral  sense,"  —  transactions  reduced  to  mere  words 
for  the  sake  of  the  reader.  This  leads  one  to  believe  that 
an  Elizabethan  commentator  may  some  day  issue  an  edition 
of  Shakespeare  with  passages,  called  by  Lamb  "silent 
meditations,"  printed  in  italics  to  serve  as  psychological  stage 
directions,  after  the  manner  of  Shaw. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  something  in  Lamb's  argument.  His 
recent  adherent  is  Maeterlinck,  who  likewise  believes  in 
the  unsuitableness  of  unseen  forces  for  expressive  interpre 
tation.  They  must  be  quietly  realized.  Lamb  and  Maeter 
linck  have  both  found  the  theatre  incapable  of  solving  the 
problem  of  meditation  on  the  stage,  yet  the  poetic  drama 
must  of  necessity  deal  with  just  those  phases  of  character 
and  of  destiny  which  are  hardest  to  reconcile  with  custom 
and  habit  and  familiar,  commonplace  movement. 

Dramatic  literature  of  recent  years  represents  a  revulsion 
from  conventional  notions  which  have  grown  up  around 
ancient  models.  Quotidian  happenings  in  the  development 
of  the  individual  have  been  raised  to  high  dignity.  All  of 
this  change  has  brought  a  consequent  change  in  the  poetic 
drama;  the  scope  of  the  playwright  has  become  wider  with 
the  development  throughout  the  world  of  more  democratic 
tendencies  in  society.  The  entire  progression  is  indicated 


220  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

by  Maeterlinck's  statement  that  whereas  once  there  was 
no  poetry  in  drama  save  that  which  narrated  the  passion  of 
a  lover  like  Romeo  or  Tristan  or  Paolo,  now  a  cottager 
seated  alone  by  a  lighted  lamp  in  the  midst  of  the  forces  of 
Fate,  is  more  vitally  true,  and  more  profoundly  significant 
for  us  all.  Violent  activity  must  be  attached  to  a  spiritual 
centre,  to  what  Coleridge  terms  a  point  of  relative  rest. 

The  poetic  drama  is  therefore  in  the  process  of  adjustment; 
when  we  demand  it  for  our  stage,  we  do  so  with  precon 
ceived  notions  of  literary  excellence  and  of  poetic  fervor 
which,  when  put  to  test,  fail  to  stimulate  the  active  curiosity 
of  external  vision,  and  clog  the  dramatic  progression  by  an 
overplus  of  "  sublime  images,"  —  in  themselves  demanding 
a  slow  mind.  Drama  moves  continuously;  the  poetic  drama, 
with  its  demand  upon  imagination,  its  appeal  to  the  moral 
judgment,  and  its  lack  of  "corporal  dimensions/'  requires 
to  be  read.  The  mind  of  the  reader  must  be  allowed  to  turn 
back;  the  mind  of  an  audience  can  never  turn  back. 

The  poet  who  writes  for  the  stage  should  ever  remember 
that  the  average  theatre  judges  him  by  his  explicit  word; 
through  this  is  the  implicit  meaning  caught.  Most  attempts 
of  the  unskilled  playwrights  to  deal  with  symbolism  have 
resulted  in  an  inevitable  quality  of  indefiniteness  —  mere 
decoration  without  the  fundamental  surety  of  nature  be 
neath.  For  even  imagination  has  its  consistency;  we  under 
stand  only  in  so  far  as  we  ourselves  have  experienced.  Hence, 
when  Lowell  claimed  that  to  be  a  mystic  gave  no  one  the 
license  to  be  misty,  he  meant  that  no  matter  how  deeply 
ingrained  are  the  elements  of  life  in  art,  they  must  not  baffle 
one  who  is  sufficiently  developed  to  be  on  that  plane  of 
comprehension. 

It  is  well  to  approach  our  subject  from  these  various 
indirect  channels,  for  the  poetic  drama  is  not  a  special  form, 
per  se;  but,  to  our  manner  of  thinking,  any  play  in  which 


DRAMATIZING  POETIC  DRAMA         221 

humanity  is  raised  to  the  heights  of  greatest  spiritual  ac 
tivity  or  fulfilment.  Poetry,  therefore,  becomes  only  one 
of  the  numerous  factors  that  make  drama  what  it  is.  Blank 
verse  does  not  constitute  the  poetic  drama,  though  some 
may  think  so;  heightened  speech,  so  beyond  the  realm  of 
consistent  usage,  is  not  its  distinguishing  mark.  Poetry 
may  only  hope  to  have  its  significant  place  on  the  stage 
when  it  expresses  spiritual  quality  and  psychological  strength, 
amidst  environment  which  allows  of  such  intensive  develop 
ment,  and  yet  which  remains  familiar. 

"  Art  for  art's  sake,"  said  Mr.  Herne,  who  in  America  has 
thus  far  come  nearest  giving  us  the  poetry  of  the  common 
life,  "is  mere  decoration,  but  I  will  not  take  the  truth  for 
truth's  sake  with  the  realist,  unless  it  be  the  essential  truth." 
Hence,  our  new  poetic  drama  will  occupy  a  position  much 
like  the  oft-conceived  "  third  empire,"  so  carefully  developed 
by  Ibsen;  consistent  art  with  consistent  truth,  art  con 
sistent  with  truth,  essential  art  with  essential  truth  —  these 
are  the  statements.  Ibsen  has  shown  the  vital  meaning  in 
the  common  thing;  Emerson  has  told  the  common  man 
of  the  vital  thing.  From  the  mystic  and  the  realist  com 
bined,  we  in  America  should  be  able  to  evolve  a  poetic  drama. 
We  are  not  lacking  the  content  but  the  form. 

The  inevitable  conclusion  stares  us  in  the  face.  Our  great 
English  poets  wrote  for  the  theatre,  and  most  of  them  failed; 
Macready  thrust  Browning  to  the  fore;  Irving  preserved 
Tennyson  for  a  while.  It  is  wrong  to  say,  as  though  there 
were  a  constitutional  incompatibility  between  the  two,  that 
the  reason  why  these  men  failed  lay  in  the  fact  that  liter 
ature  is  divorced  from  the  stage.  The  real  matter  is  that 
the  poet,  however  much  he  might  love  the  theatre,  has  never 
mastered  the  technique.  The  miniature  painter  and  the 
mural  artist  do  not  use  the  same  brush,  though  the  latter 
might  find  it  necessary  at  times  to  employ  a  hair  line. 


222  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Shall  we,  therefore,  have  to  confess  that  the  poetic  drama 
needs  to  be  dramatized.  This  is  only  a  facetious  way  of 
saying  that  out  of  a  mass  of  beauty  and  fancy,  of  imagi 
nation  and  meditation,  the  poetic  drama  must  be  lifted  into 
a  plane  of  kinship  with  common  sense  and  human  develop 
ment.  In  Chicago,  as  I  have  already  noted,  "  Macbeth  " 
was  given  before  a  nickelodeon  audience  in  moving-pictures; 
the  police  had  to  stop  the  performance,  so  violent  the  action; 
the  whole  spiritual  quality  of  the  piece  had  been  sacrificed 
for  the  shell.  The  poetic  drama  has  suffered  from  the  other 
extreme ! 

Coleridge,  metaphysician  though  he  was,  nevertheless 
realized  the  need  for  a  reconciliation  between  characters  as 
they  exist  ordinarily  with  their  manner  and  speech,  and 
the  same  characters  idealized  in  proportion,  stressed  in 
language,  filling  a  large  destiny  rather  than  doing  an  ordin 
ary  deed.  Until  Ibsen  arrived,  we  had  only  a  vague  notion 
as  to  the  utilization  of  the  commonplace  on  the  stage;  we 
were  told  by  the  text-books  that  a  play  dealt  only  with  the 
significant  moments  in  the  development  of  the  individual 
—  and  by  significant  they  meant  violent  or  picturesque. 
The  melodramatists  abused  this  idea,  the  romanticists  and 
sentimentalists  conventionalized  it.  Then  Ibsen,  even 
though  tarred  with  the  pitch  of  Scribe,  wrote  "A  Doll's 
House,"  and  soon  followed  it  with  the  white-heat  realism 
of  "Ghosts,"  and  brought  the  soul  out  of  its  shreds  and 
patches  into  the  familiar  light  of  day  —  familiar  and  some 
times  cruel,  though  hardly  unnecessary. 

The  little  moments  in  life  pulsed  with  vitality;  Ibsen 
used  the  ordinary  speech  of  intercourse,  and  surcharged  it 
with  spiritual  intensity.  Curiously,  before  Ibsen  was  known 
in  America,  Mr.  Herne  had  exemplified  by  his  "Margaret 
Fleming"  what  depths  lay  in  the  tragic  of  the  common 
place;  he  had  instinctively  worked  out  for  himself,  despite 


DRAMATIZING  POETIC  DRAMA         223 

the  fact  he  was  forced  back  into  the  old  subterfuges  of  the 
melodramatist,  the  whole  theory  of  the  active  presence  of 
hidden  forces  —  a  recognition  which  quickens  the  entire 
gamut  of  life  and  raises  the  ordinary  into  the  realm  of  the 
poetic. 

When  Mrs.  LeMoyne  presented  "  A  Blot  on  the  'Scutch 
eon/'  the  one  of  Browning's  plays  nearest  stage  require 
ments,  the  weight  and  beauty  of  the  lines  turned  the  audience 
into  passive  listeners  of  something  being  read  aloud.  We 
forgive  in  opera  what  we  will  not  countenance  in  drama; 
long  recitative  passages  are  colored  by  music  which  serves 
as  the  necessary  stimulant  to  emotion.  The  poetic  drama 
popularly  conceived,  needs  to  be  relieved  of  its  overweight. 
Percy  Mackaye's  "Sappho  and  Phaon"  and  Stephen 
Phillips's  "  Ulysses  "  suffered  from  this  accentuation  of  beauty 
to  the  detriment  of  motive  power;  Hauptmann's  "The 
Sunken  Bell,"  with  all  the  excellence  of  its  symbolic  texture, 
dragged  in  the  moralizing  speeches  which  dulled  the  mind. 
The  same  heaviness  is  evident  in  Ridgely  Torrence's  "El 
Dorado"  (1903)  and  "Abelard  and  Heloise"  (1907).  The 
need  for  dramatization  is  commensurate  with  the  wearying 
effect  upon  the  average  audience. 

Maeterlinck,  after  having  tested  a  theory  of  the  unex 
pressed  in  drama,  so  marvelously  worked  out  in  "The  In 
truder,"  finally  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  "whatever 
the  temptation,  he  [the  dramatist]  dare  not  sink  into  in 
activity,  become  mere  philosopher  or  observer;"  he  learned 
through  experience  with  his  "puppet  theatre"  that  no 
situation  should  be  held  in  abeyance  to  profundity  of  speech. 
The  poet,  according  to  Coleridge,  has  handicapped  his  success 
in  drama  through  certain  self-conceit;  he  has  forced  the  actor, 
who  is  supposed  to  interpret  character,  to  stand  still  and 
read  long  descriptions  of  his  own  psychology,  when,  if  he 
be  a  real  actor,  he  could  have  suggested  all  by  a  flash  of 


224  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

expression  or  a  gesture.  It  is  true,  as  Henry  Arthur 
Jones  intimates,  that  realism  is  only  justifiable  where  there 
is  spiritual  beauty  beyond;  poetic  license  has  too  often 
tried  to  find  justification  in  moral  degradation,  defying  all 
the  laws  of  reality  and  of  truth. 

If  this  be  so,  we  may  turn  to  Shaw's  comments  on  Shake 
speare,  the  essence  of  which  is  expressed  in  his  belief  that 
wherever  emotional  climaxes  are  reached,  "  we  find  passages 
which  are  Rossinian  in  their  reliance  on  symmetry  of  melody 
and  impressiveness  of  march  to  redeem  poverty  of  meaning." 
His  quarrel  with  the  theatre  of  Shakespeare  is  our  quarrel 
with  the  general  conception  of  the  position  poetry  occupies 
in  drama.  Most  poets  regard  the  drama,  not  as  a  reflex,  a 
transcript  of  life,  but  as  a  commentary  on  life,  expressed 
through  the  medium  of  dialogue;  they  subject  everything 
to  their  own  artistic  needs,  believing,  no  doubt,  that  the 
predominance  of  true  poetry  will  cover  up  the  lack  of  drama, 
whereas  it  only  serves  to  accentuate  the  fact  that  drama 
is  not  there. 

The  commendable  feature  about  William  Vaughn 
^Ss^Moody's  "The  Great  Divide"  is  found  in  his  proper,  though 
*  not  perfect,  use  of  the  poetic  content  in  the  dramatic  mould; 
it  possesses  elemental  largeness,  and  its  characters  are  hu 
man,  retaining  their  average  proportions  in  the  midst  of  their 
spiritual  aspirations  and  expansion.  Mr.  Mackaye's  "The 
Scarecrow,"  based  on  Hawthorne,  attempts  almost  success 
fully  to  combine  the  hidden  force  with  the  outward  expression, 
but  he  does  not  quite  reach  the  texture  of  New  England 
conscience.1 

A  surprising  proportion  of  any  poetic  play  deals  either  with 
irrelevant  imagery,  or  with  mental  introspection  which 
precedes  action.  From  speech,  it  falls  into  declamation; 

1  In  its  acted  form,  however,  with  Mr.  Frank  Reicher  in  the  title 
role,  it  was  most  effective. 


DRAMATIZING  POETIC  DRAMA         225 

from  character  it  passes  into  nothing  more  than  a  vehicle  for 
theory  or  poetic  idea,  cut  aloof  from  the  essential  meaning 
of  the  moment.  That  is  what  Israel  ZangwilPs  "  The  Melt 
ing  Pot"  suffers  from,  apart  from  his  abominable  method 
of  seeking  humor.  His  hero  does  not  express  the  conviction 
which  lies  within,  but  utters  Mr.  ZangwilFs  apostrophes 
upon  that  migration  of  races  whose  fusion  will  some  day 
constitute  the  American  people.  A  note  of  insincerity 
results  where  bombast  predominates;  Dickens's  American 
Eagle  crying  ha,  ha!  is  not  an  agreeable  picture.  Yet  speech 
after  speech,  poetic  in  scope,  was  thrust  upon  Zangwill's 
hero  relentlessly. 

We  know  that  life  is  greater  than  drama;  that  art,  what 
ever  its  form,  is  only  a  means  of  expressing  our  comprehension 
of  the  life  in  which  we  find  ourselves.  But  most  of  our  poets 
who  have  attempted  drama  have  not  realized  how  close 
to  life  drama  really  is.  It  is  not  a  vehicle,  but  an  expression; 
it  does  not  hold,  but  it  gives  out.  "Peter  Pan"  represents 
the  genius  of  Barrie,  dramatizing  Wordsworth's  "Heaven 
lies  about  us  in  our  infancy,"  in  terms  of  common  experience 
and  of  eternal  truth.  "  What  Every  Woman  Knows "  and 
"Quality  Street"  do  not  defy  the  laws  of  the  familiar,  yet 
both  plays  are  shot  through  with  the  poetry  of  sentiment. 

Far  from  disparaging  the  poetic  drama,  we  claim  that 
our  stage  thirsts  for  it.  Yet  we  do  not  blame  the  manager 
for  being  wary  of  the  conventional  form,  which  has  neither 
profited  by  Maeterlinck  nor  learned  of  Ibsen.  The  pulse  of 
life  throbs  through  the  land;  there  is  in  our  mundane  exist 
ence  the  call  to  higher  things;  from  the  wheat  fields  year 
after  year  comes  the  cry  for  labor  —  the  epic  cry  from  the 
soil.  The  poet  stands  confused  before  the  dilemma.  "How," 
he  questions,  "shall  I  reconcile  the  poetic  language  with 
the  man  of  wage,  with  the  machinery  of  utility,  with  the 
average  moments  of  life?"  Man  has  his  exalted  feelings, 


226  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

even  when  his  feet  are  firmly  planted  upon  earth.  I  remem 
ber  once  walking  along  a  country  road  with  Clyde  Fitch; 
we  passed  a  fleshy,  grimy  beer-driver  in  the  open  field,  with 
a  flower  in  his  apology  for  a  buttonhole.  "There,"  said 
Mr.  Fitch,  "  is  the  poetry  of  ordinary  existence." 

At  supreme  moments,  language,  thought,  spirit,  become 
supreme.  The  blacksmith  may  talk  in  the  poetry  of  his 
uncouth  prose;  but  no  one  can  take  from  him  the  purity 
of  his  feeling  when  his  feeling  is  pure,  or  the  high  resolution 
of  his  character,  when  circumstance  and  situation  prompt 
it  to  act,  or  the  strength  of  his  primal  being  when  he  is  strong. 
The  poet  must  not  mould  his  character  to  suit  a  precon 
ceived  notion;  in  drama  one  must  be  true  to  life  rather 
than  to  the  conventions  of  art.  We  know  of  no  form  for  the 
theatre  other  than  drama  —  drama  which  is  divided  into 
relative  grades,  dependent  upon  the  predominance  of  certain 
artistic  qualities.  Even  in  dealing  with  the  unseen,  Maeter 
linck  never  fails  to  refer  to  "active"  forces.  Only  on  rare 
occasions  does  the  average  person  speak  aloud  to  himself; 
that  is  why  the  soliloquy  has  fallen  into  ill-favor.  And  so, 
one  by  one,  the  conventions  of  drama  are  disproven. 

We  need  another  name  for  that  play  which  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  call  "poetic  drama";  we  need  to  discover 
that  the  old  form  has  falsified  beauty,  since  it  has  taken  it 
away  from  character,  from  life.  Only  when  we  have  written  a 
real  drama  in  which  poetry  occupies  its  essential  position 
in  relation  to  life,  will  we  cease  in  our  belief  that  the  poetic 
drama  needs  to  be  dramatized. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

SUNLIGHT,   MOONLIGHT,   AND   FOOTLIGHT 

IT  is  a  healthy  condition  for  us  to  have  reached  in  drama, 
when  we  become  conscious  of  its  presence  in  the  community, 
and  when  we  are  furthermore  made  aware  of  its  power, 
both  positive  and  negative.  For  after  all,  it  is  not  through 
accident  that  the  theatre  was  established,  but  as  a  result 
of  the  fundamental  instinct  for  expression  and  as  a  symbol 
of  some  over-towering  emotion,  within  the  experience  of 
us  all.  The  old  tribal  vocero,  or  songs  of  grief,  so  excellently 
discussed  by  Professor  Gummere,  while  more  primitive 
in  form  and  more  elemental  in  idea  than  the  modern  civic 
response  to  condition,  are  not  so  very  far  removed  in  the 
communal  pyschology  which  necessitated  them,  from  the 
present  social  response  which  Le  Bon  has  analyzed  in  his 
treatise  on  "  The  Crowd."  l 

Hence,  the  theatre  is  founded  upon  what  might  almost 
be  termed  an  immutable  masonry  of  human  need.  We  could 
change  Pinero's  wisdom  in  "Mid-Channel,"  and  direct  it  to 
our  ends  by  saying  that  since  man  and  woman  and  the  shape 
of  a  hen's  egg  are  the  constant  facts  of  life,  the  theatre  is 

1  See  chapter  in  Clayton  Hamilton's  "The  Theory  of  the 
Theatre"  on  "The  Psychology  of  Theatre  Audiences,"  pp.  30-58; 
also  W.  P.  Eaton's  "The  American  Stage  of  To-day,"  in  which 
there  is  a  chapter  on  "Crowds  and  Mr.  Hamilton,"  pp.  282-90; 
also  Professor  Brander  Matthews'  "A  Study  of  the  Drama,"  Chap 
ter  IV,  "The  Influence  of  the  Audience,"  pp.  68-91. 


228  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

placed  beyond  human  endowment,  and  finds  its  sanction 
in,  nay  more,  is  coincident  with,  the  very  act  of  living. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  we  have,  for  the  instant,  lost  sight 
of  the  reasons  why  the  theatre  exists,  even  though  we  are 
growing  more  and  more  conscious  of  its  importance  as  a 
social  institution  and  as  a  cultural  and  an  educational  force; 
we  are  also  not  quite  sure  in  our  minds  whether  we  have  a 
right  to  enjoy  what  we  enjoy,  even  though  public  decency 
bars  "The  Moulin  Rouge"  from  the  theatre,  and  establishes 
a  censorship  for  moving-pictures. 

In  our  attitude  toward  the  playhouse,  we  are  constantly 
contradicting  ourselves,  possibly  because  we  find,  with 
Goethe,  that  it  is  easier  to  do  than  to  think.  That  is  char 
acteristic  of  communal  restlessness,  if  Le  Bon  is  right  in 
his  assertion  that  an  idea  must  be  transmuted  into  action; 
therefore,  excessive  sentiment  and  symbols  are  representa 
tive  of  popular  taste. 

The  theatre  is  not  only  a  source  of  amusement,  but  it 
should  be  a  source  of  the  right  kind  of  amusement;  that  is 
the  only  way  in  which  it  will  ever  become  permanently 
instructive;  through  vital  interest  rather  than  through  set 
and  deadly  purpose  will  it  ever  hope  to  mould  public  opinion. 
If  the  Mayor  of  Philadelphia  was  over-cautious  in  prohibit 
ing  the  New  Theatre  company  from  presenting  Galsworthy's 
"Strife"  in  that  city,  for  fear  that  its  labor  motive  would 
draw  fire  from  the  car  strikers  then  at  war  (1910),  the  New 
Theatre  was  unwise  in  heralding  its  mission  —  which  was 
to  clear  the  atmosphere  of  Philadelphia  with  a  little  of  Gals 
worthy's  philosophy  about  capital  and  labor. 

Yet  the  incident  is  significant,  for  it  points  to  one  of  the 
essential  functions  of  the  theatre  —  to  prompt  civic  thought; 
and  it  likewise  indicates  its  true  relation  to  the  civic  body. 
It  is  necessary  to  emphasize  these  conditions,  inasmuch 
as  our  present  discussion  is  to  deal  with  communal  con 
sciousness  of  art  and  civic  interest  in  art. 


SUNLIGHT,  MOONLIGHT,   FOOTLIGHT      229 

Never,  within  the  past  twenty  years,  have  we  had  more 
cause  to  be  encouraged  than  over  the  present  status  of  drama 
in  this  country.  This  is  not  due  to  the  efforts  of  the  Froh- 
mans,  the  Shuberts,  or  any  other  theatrical  concern,  although 
many  of  their  productions  have  been  good;  it  is  not  because 
of  the  existence  of  a  New  Theatre,  though  the  presence  of 
such  an  institution  was  an  incentive  to  high  endeavor;  it 
is  not  due  to  the  special  faddist  who  takes  up  drama,  though 
such  patronizing  may  improve  the  dilettante  without  harm 
ing  the  theatre.  But  beneath  these  outward  activities  flows 
the  deep  and  abiding  current  of  our  natures,  and  when  a 
whole  people's  sense  of  life  becomes  quickened,  when  its 
intelligence  grows  keener,  its  emotion  more  clearly  defined, 
its  specific  knowledge  of  an  institution  more  marked  —  in 
other  words,  when  there  is  centred  upon  the  theatre,  as 
emanating  from  an  interested  public,  a  radium  spot  of  under 
standing,  the  civic  consciousness  smarts  under  the  necessity 
for  maintaining  some  standard  of  theatrical  taste. 

At  first  glance,  this  condition  may  not  be  evident,  but 
we  only  have  to  ask  ourselves  why  —  apart  from  public 
love  of  novelty  —  we  are  interested  in  revivals,  to  reach 
some  basis  for  hope  that  our  theatre  public  has  awakened 
from  its  slothfulness,  its  indifference,  its  prejudice.  There 
were  profound  humanity  and  deep,  universal  spirituality 
in  "Everyman"  when  first  it  was  brought  to  this  country; 
no  amount  of  archaeology  could  destroy  its  universal  ap 
plication.  There  was  delicate  realization  of  the  poetry  of 
motion,  when  the  Greek  dances,  so  charmingly  interpreted 
by  Isadora  Duncan,  were  first  offered  to  the  public.  The 
fact  that  these  dances  have  been  overdone  to  the  point  of 
gross  suggestiveness  does  not  alter  our  belief  in  the  dance 
as  an  undying  expression  of  communal  emotion. 

In  the  history  of  the  past  ten  years,  the  many  revivals, 
offered  to  the  theatre-goers  have  developed  an  interest  in 


230  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

the  historical  phase  of  the  drama,  have  encouraged  the 
collegiate  body  to  reproduce  —  in  the  spirit  of  accuracy  — 
old  dramas,  rather  than  waste  energy  on  some  pale  imitation 
of  the  conventional  comic  opera.  Hence  we  find  the  Yale 
Dramatic  Association  presenting  Ibsen's  "The  Pretenders " 
and  Sheridan's  "The  Critic,"  while  the  New  York  City 
College  has  spent  commendable  effort  on  Massenger's  "A 
New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts."  Not  to  be  outdone,  for  Ben 
Greet  is  the  real,  true  father  of  this  archaic  impulse  in  America, 
as  William  Poel  is  in  England,  the  Greet  Players  have  ap 
peared  in  Marlowe's  "  Dr.  Faustus."  You  may  ask  if  this  has 
any  appreciable  effect  upon  public  taste.  The  result  may 
not  be  immediate,  but  the  impress  on  public  consciousness, 
however  slight,  is  nevertheless  apparent.1 

1  Professor  George  P.  Baker  of  Harvard  University,  and  Profes 
sor  Brander  Matthews  of  Columbia  University,  give  distinctive 
courses  in  drama  to  their  students.  The  Harvard  Dramatic  Club 
was  the  first  organization  to  present  Percy  Mackaye's  "The  Scare 
crow."  On  the  historical  side  of  Professor  Baker's  work,  Mr.  Mac- 
kaye,  Jules  Goodman,  author  of  "Mother,"  Miss  Beulah  Marie  Dix, 
part-author  of  a  fantastical  piece  called  "The  Road  to  Yester 
day,"  Miss  Josephine  Preston  Peabody,  Winthrop  Ames, 
former  director  of  The  New  Theatre,  John  Corbin,  and  W.  P. 
Eaton  were  students.  Five  years  ago  a  course  in  dramaturgic 
technique  was  started,  resulting  in  the  success  of  Edward  Sheldon 
author  of  "Salvation  Nell,"  "The  Nigger,"  and  "The  Boss."  To 
further  this  technical  training,  the  Macdowell  Club  has  estab 
lished  at  Harvard  a  Macdowell  Fellowship  for  the  encouragement 
of  young  playwrights.  Professor  Robert  W.  Herrick  of  the  Uni 
versity  of  Chicago,  gives  courses  in  dramatic  composition  and  in 
the  analysis  of  plays.  It  will  be  remembered  also  that  William 
Vaughn  Moody  came  from  the  University  of  Chicago. 

Whereas  Professor  Baker's  method  deals  with  the  theory  of 
drama,  Professor  Matthews  adheres  to  the  historical  side,  well 
indicated  in  his  book,  "A  Study  of  the  Drama."  Not  that  he 
ignores  the  physical  aspects  of  the  theatre,  but  he  believes  that 
the  very  physical  outlines  of  the  playhouse  limit  the  play.  Under 
his  tutelage,  William  De  Mille,  Louis  E.  Shipman,  George  Middleton, 
and  George  Broadhurst,  have  met  with  success.  In  this  matter  of  the 
university's  interest  in  drama,  it  is  well  to  note  that  Syracuse  Uni- 


SUNLIGHT,   MOONLIGHT,   FOOTLIGHT      231 

Let  us  confess  that  some  of  these  revivals,  though  in 
structive,  are  wearisome.  They  are  not  as  diverting  as  Nora 
Bayes  singing  "Kelly"  in  "The  Jolly  Bachelors,"  or  as 
Blanche  Ring  singing  " Yip-i-y addy "  in  "The  Midnight 
Sons."  If,  in  some  respects,  they  seem  far  away  from  us, 
the  reason  is  very  largely  technical.  As  Professor  Matthews 
has  shown  in  his  most  recent  book  on  the  drama,1  a  play  is 
intimately  related  to  the  stage  for  which  it  was  originally 
written.  The  changes  which  are  requisite  in  a  Shakespeare 
text  for  the  modern  stage  are  indicative  in  a  measure  of  the 
differences  between  the  Globe  Theatre  and  the  New  Theatre. 
It  is  quite  a  natural  consequence  that  Mrs.  Patrick  Campbell 
should  fail  to  convey  the  Greek  spirit,  when,  within  the 
frame  of  a  proscenium  arch,  she  presented  a  poor  English 
translation  of  a  German  version  of  "Electra,"  instead  of 
Gilbert  Murray's  translation  of  the  original.  But  let  the 
proper  setting  be  employed  with  the  latter,  as  is  possible 
in  the  Greek  amphitheatre  at  the  University  of  California, 
and  it  is  not  so  difficult  to  impress  one  with  the  proportion 
and  unity  and  unerring  beauty  of  an  ancient  drama,  even 
though  its  conventions  are  no  longer  incumbent,  and  its 
manner  far  removed. 

We  have  dropped  many  adjuncts  of  the  theatre  because 
we  have  tried  to  limit  the  world  of  drama  to  the  horizon 
of  the  footlights.  We  have  devoted  ourselves  so  insistently 
to  subtle  considerations  of  the  clash  of  individual  will  with 
individual  will,  that  we  have  let  slip  an  expression  of  art 
which  results  from  such  a  principle  as  Le  Bon's  that  "col- 

versity  produces  original  plays;  that  H.  J.  Savage  of  Tufts  College, 
Professor  Gayley  of  the  University  of  California,  Professor  Richard 
Burton  of  the  University  of  Minnesota,  Professor  W.  L.  Phelps 
of  Yale  University,  Professor  F.  W.  Chandler  of  the  University  of 
Cincinnati,  and  Professor  S.  M.  Tucker  of  the  Brooklyn  Poly 
technic,  are  actively  engaged  in  furthering  the  work. 
1  "  A  Study  of  the  Drama."  Houghton,  1910. 


232  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

lectivities  alone  are  capable  of  great  disinterestedness  and 
great  devotion." 

In  other  words,  while  the  modern  drama  is  attempting 
through  types  to  appeal  to  an  ever  increasing  aggregate  of 
individuals,  our  theatre  is  ignoring  the  communal  joys  and 
sorrows,  hopes  and  fears,  with  which  all  peoples  of  the 
same  nation  are  endowed.  Du  Maurier's  "  An  Englishman's 
Home"  could  not  stand  close,  logical  analysis,  but  granted 
its  premises,  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  it  stirred 
the  patriotism  of  Great  Britain.  It  is  the  melodrama  of 
life  which  appeals  to  the  crowd. 

If  one  reads  dramatic  history  correctly,  therefore,  it  is 
very  evident  that  while  forms  change  and  the  methods  of 
appeal  alter,  the  psychology  of  the  crowd  remains  funda 
mentally  the  same.  Not  only  is  this  true,  but  even  though 
our  audiences  are  herded  together  under  the  same  roof,  and 
no  longer,  as  a  general  rule,  cling  to  the  hillside  beneath  a 
clear  sky,  they  go  to  the  Hippodrome  as  of  yore,  even  though 
the  spectacle  is  less  violent  than  the  ancient  one;  they 
witness  Ibsen's  "Ghosts,"  not  realizing  its  nearness  to 
"CEdipus";  they  applaud  Pavlowa  and  Mordkin,  and  are 
gripped  by  the  ecclesiasticism  of  the  Middle  Ages,  found  in 
Maeterlinck's  "Sister  Beatrice." 

The  footlights,  the  picture  frame  of  the  proscenium  arch, 
the  orchestra,  all  tend  toward  making  the  theatre  more 
intimate  and  more  subtle.  Hence,  in  the  legitimate  drama 
there  is  a  group  sentiment  rather  than  a  communal  sweep, 
a  more  calculating  effect  or  artifice  than  appeals  to  a  great 
crowd.  In  fact,  the  more  delicate  an  actor's  art,  the  more 
limited  his  immediate  influence,  as  far  as  the  numbers  of 
his  audience  are  concerned.  No  one  could  regard  the  exten 
sive  spectacle  of  Schiller's  "  The  Maid  of  Orleans,"  as  given 
by  Miss  Maude  Adams  before  fifteen  thousand  spectators 
in  the  Harvard  Stadium,  as  any  thing  more  than  an  interesting 


SUNLIGHT,  MOONLIGHT,  FOOTLIGHT     233 

pageant,  totally  unsuited  for  any  other  than  visual  effect. 
When  the  city  of  Gloucester,  Massachusetts,  celebrated  in 
1909  its  founding  by  an  elaborate  fete,  during  which  Percy 
Mackaye's  "Canterbury  Pilgrims"  was  mounted  in  gorgeous 
processional,  another  fifteen  thousand  were  moved  in  the 
spirit  of  popular  appreciation  of  broad  color  and  large  en 
semble.  In  neither  of  these  attempts  did  the  interest  proceed 
deeper  than  that  created  by  novelty,  but  both  of  them  to 
a  great  extent  suggested  the  possibility  of  a  communal  art, 
distinctively  American  in  its  image  and  in  its  historical 
significance. 

Shall  the  theatre,  therefore,  be  taken  at  times  from  the 
footlight  into  the  sunlight  and  the  moonlight?  Is  that  the 
quickest  and  best  way  of  developing  a  civic  consciousness 
of  theatrical  art?  We  look  back  on  the  Hudson-Fulton 
celebration  (1909),  with  its  water  pageant  rather  devoid  of 
intent  in  the  day,  but  brilliantly  aglow  at  night,  with  its 
floats  far  less  artistically  conceived  than  the  Mardi  Gras 
groups  in  New  Orleans,  and  we  wonder  whether  this  carry 
ing  of  the  art  impulse  into  the  open,  beneath  the  sunlight 
or  the  moonlight,  will  tend  to  sharpen  civic  appreciation,  or 
simply  to  cater  to  a  liking  for  bulk.  For  even  a  processional 
demands  the  preservation  of  sequence  as  well  as  the  main 
tenance  of  association;  it  necessitates  the  participation  of 
citizens  rather  than  the  employment  of  professional  actors. 

Once  more  we  have  Ben  Greet  to  thank  for  turning  our 
eyes  from  the  footlight  to  the  sunlight  and  the  moonlight. 
It  was  about  seven  years  ago  that,  with  the  inestimable 
assistance  of  Miss  Edith  Wynne  Matthison,  he  brought 
Shakespeare  into  the  open,  and  the  warm  sunlight  of  a  sum 
mer  afternoon  played  fitfully  on  Rosalind's  hair,  while  in  the 
evening  the  moon  suffused  "A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream" 
with  a  fairy  quality  which  no  incandescence  could  effect. 

That  initial  impulse  was  followed  later  by  other  move- 


234  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

ments.  It  encouraged  colleges  to  amateur  endeavor;  it 
made  possible  the  Coburn  Players;  it  suggested  festivals 
to  small  communities  and  to  social  groups  in  crowded  quarters 
of  our  cities.  In  other  words,  though  we  harked  back  to 
the  archaic,  we  realized  that  it  was  only  to  pick  up  some  art 
instinct  which  might  just  as  well  be  developed  to-day  as  it 
was  in  the  time  when  guilds  were  civically  responsible  for 
their  parts  in  royal  and  religious  processionals. 

This  latest  evidence  of  revival,  therefore,  is  not  in  a  true 
sense  a  revival,  but  a  resumption  of  communal  expressive 
ness.  Throughout  the  country  there  is  an  incentive  to  sym 
bolize  historic  association  —  at  the  opening  of  a  bridge,  in 
commemorate  i  of  the  discovery  of  a  river,  in  celebration 
of  a  country's  ast,  or  in  the  tercentenary  of  a  city's  founding. 
There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  such  an  impulse,  sanely 
directed,  will  become  properly  instructive,  and  will  exert  an 
influence  on  popular  taste. 

When  art  is  Brought  into  the  sunlight  it  must  be  buoyant 
and  not  self-conscious;  it  has  to  shape  itself,  not  to  the  one, 
two,  three  of  theatrical  mechanism,  but  to  the  pulsating 
vagaries  of  nature.  Rosalind's  voice  must  be  suited  to  the 
twitter  of  winging  birds,  her  laugh  must  wait  upon  the  echo 
of  itself.  I  have  seen  "  Twelfth  Night "  in  the  starlight,  when 
the  actors'  voices  were  resonant  with  a  peculiar  aloofness, 
accentuated  by  swaying  trees  and  by  the  expressive  silence 
of  sleeping  things.  Nature  seems  to  play  with  art  in  the 
open;  that  is  why  art  must  play  with  nature.  For  sunlight 
tends  toward  the  real  emotion  and  moonlight  toward  the 
dreams  of  an 'exalted  spirit,  while  both  demand  that  artifice 
approach  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  essence  of  art,  and  that 
the  shadow  of  a  feeling  be  as  expressive  as  the  shadow  of 
a  leaf. 

The  time  has  arrived  for  us  to  make  use  of  our  natural 
resources  in  our  communal  expression.  This  does  not  mean 


SUNLIGHT,   MOONLIGHT,   FOOTLIGHT      235 

that  we  must  desert  the  theatre,  that  we  must  discount 
the  footlight.  It  simply  means  that  we  must  not  waste  the 
opportunities  offered  by  the  sun  and  moon.  It  means  that 
in  our  public  education  we  must  be  made  conscious  of  the 
fact  that  Nature  furnishes  us  with  stage  accessories  which 
only  a  communal  drama  may  utilize.  The  members  of  the 
Bohemian  Club  in  California,  with  their  red-wood  forest, 
have  revelled  in  this  consciousness  since  1878. 

Only  years  will  prove  whether  or  not  this  communal 
interest  will  some  day  result  in  a  special  folk-drama,  a  special 
folk-music,  a  special  folk-dance,  a  special  folk-pageant. 
Our  contention  is  that  the  time  is  just  as  propitious  now 
as  it  ever  was  in  any  period  of  dramatic  histoi'!*.  It  is  only 
the  footlight  that  has  really  changed,  that  typfLfis  theatrical 
convention.  We  are  just  waking  up  to  the  facf  that  we  have 
let  slip  a  valuable  asset  in  art;  we  have  done  that,  even  though 
we  hear  everywhere  the  necessity  for  our  being  in  harmony 
with  Nature.  The  Greeks  utilized  sunlight  and  moonlight 
in  their  communal  expression;  but  we,  in  accord  with  our 
general  wastefulness  of  natural  resources,  have  been  artisti 
cally  blind  to  all  but  the  incandescent  bulb. 

When  audiences  take  to  the  open,  their  amusements  expand 
to  accord  with  the  space  around  them.  An  entirely  different 
set  of  values  has  to  be  reckoned  with.  The  open  invites 
only  that  kind  of  entertainment  which  harmonizes  with  the 
peace  and  quiet  of  the  hills  on  one  hand,  and  with  the  majesty 
and  beauty  of  the  scenery  on  the  other.  The  Greeks  drew 
religion  and  tragedy  from  the  secret  sources  of  Nature;  they 
conducted  their  dances,  they  sang  their  Bacchic  choruses, 
they  celebrated  their  national  sentiment  beneath  the  blue 
sky. 

Let  us  suppose  that  a  stadium  was  to  be  erected  in  New 
York  City.  Would  an  open-air  theatre  have  any  appreciable 
effect  upon  theatrical  condition?  Would  it  create  any 


236  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

special  type  of  dramatist,  other  than  poets  to  compose 
choral  odes,  like  those  Percy  Mackaye  created  for  his  father's 
dream,  "Columbus"?  Such  a  playhouse  could  have  no 
influence  whatever  upon  the  conventional  theatre,  save 
in  so  far  as  pageantry  and  patriotism  might  raise  the  art 
ideals  of  the  crowd  and  the  honesty  of  the  citizen.  In  the 
open  air,  we  can  never  hope  to  have  the  same  class  of  play 
that  is  given  us  in  the  closed-in  theatre.  Out  of  doors 
demands  something  strictly  pictorial.  For  subtlety  is  lost 
where  largeness  is  demanded,  and  delicacy  of  manner  has 
to  give  way  before  charm  of  movement.  "The  School  for 
Scandal"  would  scarcely  set  well  on  the  greensward  stage. 

Yet  masques  and  carnivals  and  pageants  and  civic  parades 
are  necessary  in  the  life  of  a  people,  and  a  public  stadium 
might  revive  old  customs  and  vivify  old  manners.  The 
open-air  theatre  invites  a  new  drama  and  encourages  an 
old  form.  Some  day,  Americans  may  find  themselves  with 
a  new  pageantry  of  such  magnitude  that  children  can  learn 
their  history  from  panorama  more  real  than  that  now  given 
them  in  the  moving-picture,  and  as  resplendent  as  that 
sustained  by  the  mediaeval  guilds  or  by  the  Elizabethan 
Courts.  On  public  holidays,  the  theatre  in  the  open  air 
affords  the  dramatist  a  new  outlet  for  expression  of  an 
expansive  kind. 

But  in  order  to  have  this  pageantry  of  high  excellence, 
a  species  of  pageant-master,  such  as  Percy  Mackaye  has 
repeatedly  described,  will  have  to  be  trained.  And  one  of 
the  first  things  he  will  have  to  do  will  be  to  keep  the  poet 
within  bounds,  for  the  greensward  stage  has  its  limitations, 
as  well  as  the  legitimate  theatre.  Yet  a  well-trained  pageant- 
master,  even  though  we  are  striving  for  sane  celebration  of 
Independence  Day  and  effective  demonstration  on  Columbus 
Day,  is  not  as  necessary  for  us  to  have  as  well-trained  stage 
managers  for  our  roofed  playhouses.  People  flock  to  the 


SUNLIGHT,   MOONLIGHT,   FOOTLIGHT      237 

hillside  for  a  game  of  football  or  baseball,  and  they  go  to  the 
parks  for  music  only  when  they  are  not  scared  away  from 
the  parks  by  programs  too  classical  for  their  tastes. 

People  participate  in  pageantry  when  there  is  an  anni 
versary  of  civic  import.  They  are  sure  to  seek  the  open 
for  amusement  of  a  democratic  sort.  Yet,  in  order  to  give 
people  drama  at  minimum  cost,  which  seems  to  be  the  aim 
of  social  workers,  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  to  the  open  as  the 
only  means,  especially  when  the  medium  of  Nature  does  not 
invite  the  modern  drama  distinctive  of  our  day. 

The  Civic  Theatre1  has  been  debated  as  often  as  a  National 
Theatre,  and  some  reformers  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to 
seek  a  Theatre  of  Ideas,  as  though  there  were  such  a  thing. 
What  New  York  has  debated  is  a  stadium,  run  as  our  parks 
are  run,  only  with  the  endeavor  to  keep  it  in  touch  with 
the  theatrical  life  of  the  city.  In  one  way,  this  might  re 
move  the  drama  of  a  spectacular  kind  from  the  hands  of 
the  commercial  manager,  and  place  it  in  control  of  politicians. 
A  Tammany  play  might  lead  to  the  revival  of  an  old-time 
custom  of  the  riot,  such  as  used  to  occur  on  the  London  stage 
when  the  pit  reigned  supreme! 

The  Hippodrome  has  for  several  years  past  presented 
large  splashes  of  color,  and  has  proven  a  success  only  when 
it  has  stayed  away  from  the  spoken  word.  We  hear  much 
about  what  an  educational  institution  might  do  for  the 
theatre,  but  has  any  institution  ever  approached  the  Shu- 
berts  and  asked  them  to  mount  an  historical  pageant  on 
the  Hippodrome  stage? 

It  is  well  for  a  city  to  drive  citizens  more  into  the  open, 

1  It  is  well  to  recall  the  excellent  endeavor  on  the  part  of  the  late 
Charles  Sprague  Smith,  Director  of  the  People's  Institute,  New 
York  City,  to  cooperate  with  the  theatrical  managers.  Reduced 
prices  were  offered  to  school  children  and  wage  earners,  and  plays 
were  recommended  by  a  committee.  The  idea  was  well  meaning,  but 
met  with  many  handicaps. 


238  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

to  educate  them  in  the  ways  of  Nature.  To  do  that,  there 
are  better  means  than  by  taking  the  theatre  and  making  it  sub 
servient  to  Nature.  The  pageant  is  educational  as  the  col 
lege  revivals  are  educational.  But  Nature  demands  a  play 
in  accord  with  her  own  humor.  "As  You  Like  It"  is  typical 
of  this  —  and  with  her  own  setting,  "  A  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream"  is  such  a  piece.  A  drama  that  will  train 
the  citizen's  ear  to  the  trill  of  a  lark  is  certainly  a  drama 
for  all  nations,  but  the  hope  for  a  national  drama  does  not 
lie  in  the  open-air  theatre,  even  though  the  hope  of  the  poet 
might  rest  upon  a  stadium  ode  or  a  pageant  choral. 


CHAPTER  XV 

FORMS   OF  AMERICAN   DRAMA 


THE  American  theatre  has  created  no  special  form  of  drama; 
it  has  not  even  been  original  in  its  rhythm  of  expression. 
It  has  modified  types,  it  has  infused  much  picturesque 
detail  into  local  condition,  it  has  expressed  rather  crudely 
all  that  is  meant  by  American  "uplift,"  but  it  has  done  so 
in  form  imitative  of  English  and  Continental  examples. 

But  at  the  present  time  the  American  theatre-goer  is 
becoming  conscious  of  form,  inasmuch  as  ideas  are  in  the 
air  which  cannot  be  satisfied  with  the  old  moulds.  If  Au 
gustus  Thomas  had  any  spark  of  mysticism  about  him,  he 
would  express  his  belief  in  telepathy  through  other  channels 
than  direct  narrative;  if  the  comic  opera  librettist  had  been 
brought  up  in  the  school  of  W.  S.  Gilbert,  his  "book"  would 
be  more  than  a  transitory  vehicle;  if  the  dramatist  who 
turns  novels  into  plays  only  realized  that  even  a  drama 
tization  has  a  technique  and  a  unity  apart  from  the  novel 
itself,  there  would  be  fewer  failures  in  that  direction. 

The  time  is  ripe  for  new  form,  and  the  only  way  in  which 
we  can  determine  what  that  shall  be  is  to  determine  the 
real,  true  meaning  of  fundamental  principles  underlying 
the  art.  In  our  day  we  have  seen  changes  and  modifications 
in  several  forms;  we  have  even  witnessed  the  creation  of 
special  moulds  for  special  amusements.  Melodrama  rose 
to  a  certain  pitch  of  violence,  then  waned;  musical  comedy 


240  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

developed  to  a  certain  point  and  remained  there;  rag-time 
music  shaped  a  lyric  as  ungainly  as  the  cake-walk  dance; 
vaudeville,  through  the  efforts  of  Tony  Pastor  and  later 
of  Proctor  and  Keith,  was  evolved  from  the  variety.  Yet, 
as  regards  the  latter,  we  have  seen  it  persist,  not  only  in 
vaudeville,  but  in  comic  opera  as  well. 

It  is  only  in  the  minor  forms  of  theatrical  art  that  we 
have  retrograded.  In  this  very  problem  of  comic  opera, 
we  have  reverted  far  from  such  a  type  of  musical  entertain 
ment  as  Gilbert  and  Sullivan  used  to  give.  Music,  song, 
and  dance  are  welded  together  in  a  "show"  that  depends 
more  on  its  topical  "hit"  than  on  any  meaning  the  piece  as 
a  whole  might  have.  Musical  comedy  is  now  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  the  means  of  exploiting  vaudeville  reputation 
and  variety  glitter. 

In  fact,  modern  musical  comedy  is  a  hybrid  type,  of 
which  the  original  was  John  Gay's  "  The  Beggar's  Opera  " 
(1728),  and  it  allows  one  to  introduce  any  feature  into  the 
entertainment  without  disturbing  the  plot.  Ask  Harry 
B.  Smith,  author  of  "Rob  Roy,"  "Robin  Hood,"  "The 
Fortune  Teller,"  and  "The  Wizard  of  the  Nile";  Henry 
Blossom,  who  wrote  the  "  books"  for  "The  Yankee  Consul," 
"Mile.  Modiste,"  and  "The  Red  Mill";  Frank  Pixley, 
who  did  "The  Burgomaster,"  "King  Dodo,"  and  "The 
Prince  of  Pilsen"  —  they  will  tell  you  that  the  chief  difficulty 
is  in  "boosting"  a  "book"  after  it  is  written,  in  securing 
the  proper  interpolated  lyrics.  George  V.  Hobart  not  only 
turns  out  scores  of  these  flimsy  "  books,"  but  he  is  regarded 
as  a  general  renovator.  Musical  comedy  is  in  constant 
need  of  a  steady  stream  of  oxygen.  1 

Fortunes  are  made  in  the  musical  comedy  field.  The 
cooperation  of  Edgar  Smith  with  Weber  and  Fields;  of 
John  McNally  with  the  Roger  Brothers;  the  individual 
coups  of  Glen  Macdonough's  "The  Wizard  of  Oz"  and 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA         241 

"Babes  in  Toyland,"  of  Owen  Hall's  "Florodora,"  of  Hugh 
Morton's  "The  Belle  of  New  York"  —  these  are  sufficient 
evidences  of  the  popularity  of  the  form,  apart  from  its  perma 
nence  or  its  quality.  The  facts  are  these.  George  Ade's 
"The  Sultan  of  Sum"  was  only  a  moderate  success,  yet  it 
brought  him  an  income.  George  M.  Cohan,  librettist, 
composer,  and  actor,  whose  songs  sell  also  in  the  music 
stores,  netting  him  a  royalty,  has  been  known  to  draw  over 
three  thousand  dollars  weekly  as  a  librettist  alone.  That 
is  what  "Little  Johnny  Jones,"  "Forty-five  Minutes  from 
Broadway,"  and  "Yankee  Doodle"  have  done  for  him. 

But  there  is  not  one  of  these  librettists  or  of  these  com 
posers  whose  work  will  withstand  more  than  a  decade. 
There  is  no  "book"  that  will  have  the  vitality  of  Gilbert's 
"Patience,"  or  "H.  M.  S.  Pinafore,"  or  "The  Mikado." 
Not  one  of  these  names  will  outlast  more  than  two  gener 
ations,  whereas  Meilhac  and  Halevy  are  unmistakably 
identified  with  Bizet  and  Prosper  Merimee  in  "Carmen." 
Even  such  a  transplanted  and  effective  piece  as  Lehar's 
"The  Merry  Widow"  will  be  imitated,  until  the  imitations 
dim  its  freshness.  For  the  "  book  "  is  poor. 

Experience  shows  that  musical  comedy  abhors  consistency; 
it  is  a  loose  type,  even  as  vaudeville  is  a  loose  type.  These 
forms  are  full  of  tricks.  Vaudeville,  it  is  true,  has  become 
legitimitized  by  the  introduction  of  the  high-class  artist, 
who  gives  a  form  of  play  in  which  our  American  dramatist 
would  do  well  to  indulge;  I  mean,  the  playlet.  And  the 
custom  has  now  become  so  fixed,  that  the  best  actor,  no 
matter  what  his  winter's  work  may  be,  does  not  disdain  the 
comfortable  fortune  awaiting  him  in  a  few  weeks'  vaude 
ville.  In  this  way  Henry  Miller  has  utilized  Clyde  Fitch's 
"Frederic  Lemaitre."  Vaudeville,  however,  has  the  per 
nicious  effect  of  moving-pictures;  the  audience  is  not  held 
by  any  unified  or  consecutive  interest;  it  is,  in  fact,  almost 


242          THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

as  casual  as  frequenters  of  the  nickelodeon  playhouses. 
Out  from  vaudeville  has  come  excellent  material,  not  of 
the  variety  type,  but  of  the  art  type.  Chevalier  and  Lauder 
and  Genee  have  danced  and  sung,  Mrs.  Campbell  has  acted, 
and  historians  like  to  call  to  mind  the  days  when  even 
Edwin  Booth  did  not  disdain  to  blacken  his  face,  or  Edwin 
Forrest  to  dance  a  jig. 

The  chief  characteristics  of  vaudeville  will  remain,  how 
ever  much  its  good  points  are  abused  by  the  variety  inheri 
tance.  It  is  a  form  dependent  on  one's  like  for  disassociation 
of  ideas;  it  is  amusement  cultivating  nervous  strain  rather 
than  resulting  in  permanent  effect. 

The  dramatization  of  novels  cannot  be  called  a  new  form, 
for  Shakespeare  looms  in  the  past,  an  inimitable  adapter 
of  the  conte.  Professor  Matthews,  in  his  "Pen  and  Ink," 
has  a  suggestive  chapter  on  this  process,  and  we  note  that 
it  has  become  a  custom  in  every  country  to  benefit  by  the 
inventive  faculty  of  the  novelist.  For,  while  I  cannot  agree 
with  Paul  M.  Potter,  adapter  of  "Trilby,"  that  the  pas 
sionate  story  is  all  an  audience  seeks,  I  do  believe  that  an 
interesting  story,  in  novel  form,  might  be  very  well  utilized 
by  the  dramatist,  but,  mind  you,  in  the  dramatist's  way. 
In  other  words,  the  latter  must  take  liberties  with  the  former, 
in  so  far  as  the  technique  of  the  latter  differs  from  that  of 
the  former. 

Mr.  Potter  is  rash  when  he  claims  that  the  drama  is  not 
dependent  upon  the  intellectual  element.  But  it  is  easy 
to  fall  into  platitudes,  and  Mr.  Potter's  belief  that  "if  the 
feelings  of  the  audience  are  rightly  moved,  the  play  suc 
ceeds,"  has  nothing  to  prove.  For  audiences  are  moved 
intellectually  as  well  as  passionately,  and,  what  is  more, 
they  have  a  common  spirit  which  passion  only  indirectly 
appeals  to.  When  one  looks  back  on  "The  Eternal  City," 
"  The  Only  Way,"  "  The  Prisoner  of  Zenda,"  "  When  Knight- 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA          243 

hood  was  in  Flower,"  "Janice  Meredith,"  and  countless 
other  dramatizations,  when  one  regards  the  work  of  Potter, 
of  Rose,  of  Kester,  and  of  an  increasing  host,  one  is  tempted 
to  believe  that  dramatization  has  become  a  form  —  a  manu 
factured  form  —  readily  manipulated,  but  built  only  to  last 
a  season.  We  have  seen  how  often  the  American  dramatist 
has  either  dramatized  or  adapted.  Boucicault  lived  upon 
the  process;  it  even  dulled  his  originality,  though  it  did 
not  paralyze  his  resources  of  inventiveness. 

But  the  ease  with  which  novels  have  been  turned  into  plays 
has  presented  a  mistaken  idea  to  the  novelist  regarding  the 
stage.  The  process  has  been  detrimental  to  the  drama  as 
well  as  to  the  novel.  There  is  no  reason,  however,  why 
lasting  plays  should  not  be  taken  from  books,  save  that 
where  there  is  a  slavish  dependence  upon  the  story  as  told, 
there  is  a  consequent  lack  of  intensity  and  of  close  technique. 
The  reading  public  scares  the  dramatizer,  for  when  a  book 
is  popular,  and  only  popular  books  are  dramatized,  the 
dramatist  has  to  keep  faith  with  what  the  public  already 
knows. 

II 

I  do  not  think  that  it  is  so  necessary  for  the  student  of 
American  drama  to  trace  minutely  the  varying  forms  in 
which  drama  expresses  itself.  It  is  enough  that  we  are 
imitative  in  farce,  in  comedy,  in  social  drama,  in  the  problem 
play,  in  every  form  imported  from  abroad.  What  should 
concern  us,  however,  is  a  subject  that  narrows  itself  down 
to  two  points:  comedy  on  one  hand,  and  tragedy  on  the 
other.  How  fare  these  with  us,  not  as  form,  but  as  spirit; 
not  as  convention,  but  as  attitude,  as  national  outlook? 

If  our  American  humor  is  what  we  claim  it  to  be,  then 
our  comedy  should  be  rich.  And  no  one  may  complain  of 
this,  remembering  Mark  Twain,  George  Ade,  and  Peter  F. 


244  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Dunne  (Mr.  Dooley).  If  our  American  sanity  is  a  fact,  then 
our  recognition  of  the  Tragic  Spirit,  as  opposed  to  the  special 
form  of  tragedy,  must  be  pronounced.  Our  American  drama 
tists  of  the  closet  drama  employed  the  old  classic  form  of 
catastrophe,  but  that  has  passed  out  of  date  with  the  coming 
of  modern  technique.  Our  early  American  humorists  gave 
types  caricatured  as  we  have  seen  in  Sellers,  in  Solon  Shingle, 
and  in  others,  but  the  human  view,  which  lies  at  the  basis 
of  realism,  has  modified  every  form  of  comedy  and  tragedy, 
and  there  is  only  left  the  deep  and  abiding  spirit  of  each 
with  which  to  cope. 

Ill 

There  is  no  business  more  speculative  than  that  of  defi 
ning  things;  lexicographers  are  not  given  the  prophetic 
vision,  and  only  one,  so  far,  —  Dr.  Johnson  —  has  possessed 
the  literary  sense.  No  matter  what  limitation  we  place 
upon  the  meaning  of  a  word,  time  overrides  it  and  creates 
a  periodic  point  of  view. 

Since  Aristotle  framed  his  classic  definition  of  tragedy, we 
have  been  called  upon  to  reckon  with  drama  in  terms  of 
Shakespeare  on  one  hand,  and  in  terms  of  Ibsen  and  Maeter 
linck  on  the  other.  Literary  history  has  taught  us  to  be 
wary  of  declaring  old  formulse  useless.  Hence,  there  has 
become  evolved  a  type  of  criticism  which  is  more  interesting 
because  of  its  angle  of  vision  than  because  it  throws  any 
deep  and  abiding  light  upon  the  fundamental  starting-point. 

Professor  Ashley  Thorndike  wrote  a  volume  for  a  series 
called  "The  Types  of  English  Literature,"  and  he  gave  it 
the  inclusive  title  of  "Tragedy."  What  the  reader  finds  to 
be  the  case  is,  that  beginning  with  certain  general  premises, 
he  discusses  the  modifications  attendant  upon  all  practice, 
and  in  this  case  subject  to  national  characteristics.  And, 
after  reading  through  the  chapters,  a  truth  is  impressed 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA         245 

upon  us:  tragedy,  as  a  mere  form,  is  not  constant,  but  is 
a  convention  of  art,  subject  to  conventional  social  ideas 
and  ideals.  The  Tragic  Spirit  behind  the  sequence  of  things, 
or  rather  within  and  coincident  with  the  evolution  of  human 
ity,  is  more  eternal  and  more  universal. 

We  have  not  yet  had  a  treatise  on  the  Tragic  Spirit  that 
has  not  paid  greater  attention  to  the  comparative  estimate 
of  dramatists  in  the  university  or  academic  manner,  than 
to  the  psychological  reasons  for  the  existence  of  the  spirit 
itself.  Gummere  considers  the  vocero,  or  tribal  songs  of 
grief;  here  is  a  primitive  basis,  unhindered  by  any  cumber 
some  body  of  literature,  —  a  basis  upon  which  to  reach 
some  physical  recognition  of  tragedy.  Perhaps,  in  a  small 
and  not  wholly  satisfactory  manner,  W.  L.  Courtney  has 
suggested  quite  as  much  of,  the  historical  perspective  in  a 
survey  of  "The  Idea  of  Tragedy"  as  one  would  need,  in 
order  to  arrive  at  some  conception  of  the  tragic,  not  as  a 
form  but  as  a  principle. 

Now,  what  has  happened  in  this  wild  and  seemingly  in 
effectual  groping  for  the  defining  marks  of  tragedy?  Aris 
totle,  in  true  greatness  of  the  Greek  spirit,  attempting  to 
reduce  the  problem  to  its  simplest  points,  yet  including  all 
its  essential  connections  with  life,  as  the  Greek  philosophers 
saw  life,  used  general  rather  than  specific  terms :  "  Tragedy 
is  an  imitation  of  an  action  that  is  serious,  complete,  and  of 
a  certain  magnitude;  in  language  embellished  with  each 
kind  of  artistic  ornament,  the  several  kinds  being  found  in 
separate  parts  of  the  play;  in  the  form  of  action,  not  of 
narrative;  through  pity  and  fear  effecting  the  proper  kathar- 
sis,  or  purgation,  of  these  emotions." 

The  danger  of  literary  study  is  that,  too  often,  we  are 
side-tracked  by  minor  interesting  problems.  Not  only  are 
there  students  working  in  the  oppressive  style  so  well  ex 
emplified  in  Dr.  Schelling's  "Elizabethan  Drama,"  where 


246  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

streams  of  fact  measure  a  certain  orderliness  of  mind,  with 
out  expressing  the  breadth  of  spiritual  view  —  forgetful  of 
the  life  and  of  the  personality  in  the  fractional  difference 
of  the  fact  —  but  a  literature  has  grown  up  around  the 
interpretation  of  a  word.  In  Butcher's  translation  of  Aris 
totle,  he  analyzes  the  Greek  conception  of  "the  function 
of  tragedy/'  and  deals  with  those  critics,  including  Lessing 
and  Goethe,  who  have  debated  and  challenged  the  transla 
tion  of  the  word  katharsis,  or  purgation.  You  see  how  subtly 
one  may  be  drawn  into  a  profound  discussion  of  the  ethics 
of  an  art,  losing  sight  of  the  essentials  under  consideration. 

The  subject  is  a  big  one  and  a  human  one;  on  one  hand, 
you  have  the  conventions  of  the  stage  in  different  ages, 
affecting  the  form  of  tragedy;  on  the  other,  there  are  the 
moral  and  social  standards  which  have  moved  the  individual 
along  the  scale  of  increasing  importance.  We  have  had 
considered  for  us  Greek  tragedy,  Roman  tragedy,  and,  in 
modern  times,  tragedy  reacted  upon  by  English,  French, 
German,  Spanish,  and  Italian  temperament.  But  the  basic 
reasons  for  the  support  and  development  of  the  Tragic 
Spirit,  whatever  the  environment,  have  not  had  a  popular, 
a  readable  exposition.  That  Americans,  for  example,  do 
not  care  for  tragedy  as  a  form  of  drama,  and  blind  them 
selves  to  the  Tragic  Spirit,  is  not  due  to  a  predominating 
cry  in  the  illogical  vein  of  the  Dr.  Fell  couplet.  Nor  may 
we  go  so  deep  as  ethnology  for  an  explanation.  But  a 
perspective  view  of  our  human  response  to  social  and 
economic  fact  will  give  us  cause  to  believe  that  comedy,  in 
its  richest  sense,  measures  our  dramatic  taste. 

In  Greek  tragedy,  we  consider  the  abstract  wrill  struggling 
against  a  religious  attitude  toward  Fate.  In  Shakespeare, 
there  is  the  human  will  centered  upon  personality,  struggling, 
not  against  Fate,  but  against  time  and  circumstance.  In 
Ibsen  and  Maeterlinck,  the  stage  contracts,  becomes  cen- 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA         247 

tred  in  personality  effected  by  all  the  currents  of  time. 
I  have  elsewhere  said  that  Ibsen  unfailingly  approached 
optimism,  save  in  the  case  of  "Hedda  Gabler"  and  "The 
Wild  Duck,"  through  pessimistic  channels;  that  his  in 
dignation  was  health-giving,  and  counteracted  the  bitter 
realism  of  his  temporal  contemplation.  Maeterlinck,  in 
the  tracks  of  Emerson,  has  taken  all  the  abstract  ideas  of 
the  Greeks  —  the  concepts  of  destiny,  righteousness,  truth  — 
moving  in  an  outside  sphere,  and  has  compressed  them  within 
and  around  the  individual. 

Tragedy  of  old  had  a  conventional  idea  that  only  the 
highly  bred,  the  kings,  the  princes  of  the  universe,  were 
subject  to  the  cataclysmic  reversals  of  Nature.  But  the 
modern  note  accentuates  a  democratic  level,  and,  as  we  have 
"The  Treasure  of  the  Humble,"  so  we,  perforce,  come  to 
consider  "the  tragical  in  daily  life." 

"  I  have  grown  to  believe,"  writes  Maeterlinck, "  that  an 
old  man,  seated  in  his  arm-chair,  waiting  patiently,  with 
his  lamp  beside  him ;  giving  unconscious  ear  to  all  the  eternal 
laws  that  reign  about  his  house;  interpreting,  without  com 
prehending,  the  silence  of  doors  and  windows,  and  the  quiver 
ing  voice  of  the  light;  submitting  with  bent  head  to  the 
presence  of  his  soul  and  his  destiny,  .  .  .  motionless  as 
he  is,  does  yet  live  in  reality  a  deeper,  more  human,  and  more 
universal  life  than  the  lover  who  strangles  his  mistress,  the 
captain  who  conquers  in  battle,  or  '  the  husband  who  avenges 
his  honor.'" 

Here,  then,  the  modern  concept  of  tragedy,  even  in  its 
formal  state,  takes  on  a  new  aspect;  the  heightened  swing 
of  blank  verse  has  had  to  contend  with  the  commonplace 
vitality  of  Ibsen  prose.  But  the  essence  of  the  form,  which 
is  the  Tragic  Spirit,  has  become  almost  personal  in  its 
source. 

In  most  cases,  literary  history  has  shown  that  dramaturgic 


248          THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

conventions  may  generally  be  defied.  The  comic  idea  has 
spread  in  such  directions  as  to  approach  the  tragic.  Someone 
refused  lately  to  write  a  book  on  comedy  because  the  subject 
was  so  inclusive  in  its  reach,  under  modern  theatrical  nomen 
clature.  No  longer  does  a  tragedy  necessarily  imply  death; 
no  longer  does  death  have  to  occur  off  the  stage.  Technique 
and  philosophy  have  thrown  into  temporary  disuse  the  solilo 
quy,  which  largely  expressed  narratively  what  Ibsen  could 
place  into  seemingly  trite  dialogue,  what  Maeterlinck,  in 
such  a  perfect  piece  of  psychology  and  clinical  observation 
as  "  The  Blind, "  treats  through  the  atmospheric  quality  of 
his  Ollendorfian  talk  —  which  is  only  Ollendorfian,  by 
the  way,  when  it  is  badly  read. 

Maeterlinck  has  given  us  "The  Life  of  the  Bee";  neither 
has  science  refuted  his  observation  nor  economics  his  social 
statement;  yet  primarily  his  essay  is  no  text-book  on  api 
culture,  no  discussion  of  the  social  unit.  My  contention 
is  that  scholarship  only  half  sees,  or,  more  aptly,  sees  only 
half  of  the  subject  it  considers.  Tragedy  needs  yet  to  be 
viewed  in  the  Maeterlinckian  fulness. 

This  does  not  mean  that  one  should  try  to  sense  instinc 
tively  the  Tragic  Spirit,  though  the  true  artist  assuredly  be 
comes  freer  as  he  divines  his  substance  and  its  essential 
form,  rather  than  bases  it  upon  studied  or  remembered 
models.  One  writes  tragedy  only  when  the  Tragic  Spirit 
moves  him  forcefully,  only  when  it  emanates  from  the 
material  which  is  his  choice.  I  quote  Maeterlinck:  "None 
but  yourself  shall  you  meet  on  the  highway  of  Fate.  If 
Judas  go  forth  to-night,  it  is  toward  Judas  his  steps  will 
tend." 

Life  is  so  closely  knit  with  the  tragic  and  the  comic,  that 
defining  will  not  account  for  all  the  forms  that  arise  there 
from.  Abstractly  stated,  we  see  the  Tragic  Spirit  as  one 
unchangeable  principle  —  wherein  agony,  despair,  grief, 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA        249 

pain,  tend  toward  the  dissolution  of  the  human  will.  Comedy 
may  yield  to  the  darker  balance  of  life,  becoming  serious, 
grave,  even  destructive,  yet  still  we  would  keep  from  desig 
nating  it  as  tragedy. 

Therefore,  even  though  "A  Doll's  House"  and  "Ghosts" 
be  painful  in  their  outcome,  though  "Hannele"  wrench 
the  heart  with  its  pathetic  child  symbol,  though  Pinero's 
"Iris"  be  the  tragic  dragging  of  a  woman  into  the  gutter, 
we  theatre-goers  are  at  a  want  for  the  phrase  by  which  to 
call  them.  Ibsen  wrote  no  tragedies  during  his  later  life, 
in  the  accepted  sense  of  the  word;  yet  in  no  modern  play 
wright  is  the  Tragic  Spirit  so  clearly  realizable  —  which  in 
no  way  detracts  from  his  positive  influence. 

Somehow,  form  has  crept  into  the  popular  conception  of 
the  outward  expression  by  which  the  Tragic  Spirit  is  recog 
nized.  Is  it  necessary  to  have  the  lofty  style,  the  exaggerated 
speech,  the  melancholy  event,  the  florid  diction,  the  stately 
action?  Then  truly  the  cottage  and  cabin  are  no  scenes 
for  tragedy,  and  the  commonplace  contains  no  essence  of 
the  same.  It  is  the  great  flow  of  circumstance,  of  time,  of 
infinitude  around  the  lowly,  that  must  be  reconciled  with 
the  accustomed  height  and  swing  of  the  art  form. 

Verily,  the  student's  perspective  is  needed  by  the  writer 
on  tragedy,  but  it  is  his  imagination  and  his  constructive 
ability  that  will  aid  him  most.  For  the  Tragic  Spirit  in  man 
is  that  which  gives  life  to  tragedy,  and  the  product  may 
only  be  a  faint  reflex  of  the  principle.  That  is  where  Greek 
art  overreached  the  limits  of  its  time;  it  was  conceived 
clearly  in  the  spirit  of  highest  Greek  endeavor;  it  was  based 
upon  the  concepts  of  eternal  principles.  Thinking  was  not 
imitative;  it  was  pristine.  Men  spoke  like  oracles,  stating 
law  as  above  fact. 

Tragedy,  as  a  form  of  art,  is  at  the  present,  furthest 
removed  from  the  American  spirit  —  from  the  democratic 


250  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

spirit.  I,  nevertheless,  take  the  attitude  that  we  must 
not  blind  ourselves  to  the  existence  of  the  Tragic  Spirit,  even 
though  we  do  not  accept  tragedy,  per  se,  on  our  boards. 
Ibsen's  voice  proclaims  its  presence  underlying  the  ills  of 
our  social  organism;  Maeterlinck's  philosophy  shows  the 
lowliest  soul  confronted  by  the  problems  of  eternity.  We 
respond  in  terms  of  the  comic,  but  the  American  people 
cannot  be  blind  to  the  tragic  in  their  lives. 

We  meet  misfortune  in  the  comedy  spirit  of  youth. 
Take  the  ravages  of  the  Civil  War  and  the  epic  response 
afterward  among  Southerners,  who  faced  the  future  with 
supernal  faith.  Take  the  San  Francisco  earthquake  and 
the  reaction  that  resulted  in  the  rebuilding  of  a  city.  No 
one  will  deny  the  presence  there  of  the  tragic  element. 
Perhaps  we  are  prone  to  lose  sight  of  it  in  the  reaction  of 
the  American  spirit  itself,  after  the  tragic  event. 

Undoubtedly,  the  old  dramatic  terms,  though  rigidly 
defined  by  lexicographers,  are  becoming  too  narrow  to  hold 
the  varying  forms.  And  no  doubt,  with  the  principle  of 
Ibsen  on  one  hand,  and  with  that  of  Maeterlinck  on  the 
other,  we  are  tending  toward  a  new  form.  This  will  be  con 
sidered  later.  But,  at  present,  we  need  some  treatise  on 
tragedy  which  will  estimate  its  essential  spirit  as  well  as 
its  varying  expression.  We  speak  frankly  in  our  magazines 
and  on  our  stage,  of  conditions  involving  sexual  relations  and 
struggles  in  environment.  Yet,  though  we  see  souls  dragged 
to  the  depths  of  despair  in  Walter's  "The  Easiest  Way," 
though  Jones's  "Mrs.  Dane's  Defense"  gives  us  another 
form  of  social  evil,  and  Nirdlinger,  in  "  The  World  and  His 
Wife,"  represents  the  grave  consequences  of  social  gossip, 
still  we  find  staring  us  in  the  face  on  our  program  the  word 
"comedy."  And  our  attitude  becomes  that  of  comedy 
toward  the  vital  problems  of  life,  simply  because  we  will  not 
countenance  on  our  stage,  or  in  our  ordinary  pursuits,  the 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA         251 

form   of   tragedy,  and   we   have  failed  to  identify  in  our 
national  life  the  presence  of  a  Tragic  Spirit. 


IV 

The  Comic  Spirit  is  an  illusive  factor  in  literary  history; 
it  is  a  deep  and  subtle  principle  in  life.  Raised  from  its 
Bacchic  origin,  it  has  become  the  very  core  of  sanity,  it  has 
become  the  true  moral  corrective  of  tragedy.  Perhaps 
we  are  losing  sight  of  this  in  our  demand  that  a  name  cover 
many  species,  until  at  last  the  pure  type  is  confounded 
with  the  hybrid.  But,  nevertheless,  for  richness  of  humanity, 
for  breadth  of  view,  for  deep  understanding,  the  Comic 
Spirit  has  a  range  that  embraces  a  large  sweep  of  life. 

To  him  who  views  the  world  aright,  there  are  always  the 
action  and  reaction,  the  tension  and  relief.  In  tragedy,  the 
emotions  are  so  powerfully  involved  that  one  is  no  longer 
able  to  measure  the  deviation  from  the  normal  view;  but 
a  real  value  of  the  Comic  Spirit  depends  almost  wholly  upon 
our  realization  of  how  far  we  have  deflected  from  the  truth. 
We  can  only  reach  the  latter  state  when  we  have  adequately 
become  informed  of  the  former.  We  arrive  at  the  pure 
comic  when  we  have  sounded  the  depths  of  full  existence. 

Now,  this  view  of  comedy  has  been  lost  to  the  present- 
day  playgoer;  most  of  our  writers  either  avoid  the  subject 
as  being  too  abstract  for  journalistic  purposes,  or  else  dis 
cuss  new  forms  herded  together  under  an  old  name.  If 
we  look  into  the  philosophy  of  the  matter,  we  find  the  psy 
chologist  too  intent  upon  the  physiological  reasons  as  to 
why  we  laugh,  and  the  metaphysician  too  loath  to  handle 
the  subject  in  the  concrete.  Yet,  in  the  scattered  cases 
where  writing  has  been  done  on  the  Comic  Spirit,  the  human 
istic  aspect  has  been  surely  persisting,  and  its  right  to  be 


252  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

regarded  as  the  sane  view  seems  justified  in  the  light  of 
accomplishment . 

Within  past  years,  we  have  had  evidences  of  an  existing 
sense  of  the  Comic  Spirit  among  our  dramatists  and  players. 
Mr.  Barrie  would  approach  very  near  to  it,  if  his  piquancy 
of  outlook  was  not  limited  by  an  agreeable  mannerism  of 
narrative  style.  After  a  fashion,  he  defined  the  true  comedy 
position  when,  in  "What  Every  Woman  Knows,"  Maggie 
Wylie  declared  that  no  one  could  love  her  who  could  n't 
laugh  at  her  a  little. 

When  Percy  Mackaye  wrote  "Mater,"  his  intention  was 
to  imbue  American  conditions  with  the  essence  of  comedy, 
illustrating  by  way  of  political  satire  the  fundamental  note 
in  life,  that  "  the  test  of  love  —  and  the  best  of  love  —  is 
laughter."  But  at  present  his  spiritual  desire  is  more  defined 
than  his  understanding  of  the  body  politic,  and  Mr.  Mac- 
kaye's  Comic  Spirit,  as  expressed,  comes  in  flashes  rather 
than  in  even  flow. 

Paul  Kester,  essaying  to  make  a  drama  from  "  Don  Quix 
ote,"  conceived  his  knight-errant  in  terms  of  situation, 
rather  than  in  terms  of  the  rich  defects  of  the  character. 
In  this  latter  respect,  Mr.  Sothern  was  the  only  one  who 
approached  Cervantes'  original  conception  —  to  picture 
the  weakness  of  over-romantic  chivalry,  at  the  same  time 
fully  realizing  perfectly  the  innate  perfectness  of  the  true 
gentleman.  His  acting  raised  Mr.  Kester's  play,  by  enforc 
ing  the  personal  dignity  of  the  character. 

Take  what  comedy  you  will,  in  which  there  flows  any  of 
the  red  blood  of  life,  and,  after  analysis,  you  will  find  that 
the  Comic  Spirit  is  not  haphazard,  is  not  shallow,  is  not  easy 
to  grasp.  One  must  be  very  near  to  life  in  order  to  feel  it, 
and  must  have  asked  one's  self  questions  regarding  the 
eternal  verities,  as  well  as  have  answered  them. 

I  have  chosen  to  confine  myself  entirely  to  the  Comic 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA         253 

Spirit  as  affecting  drama,  realizing  at  the  outset  that  we 
must  not  identify  it  exclusively  with  the  stage,  inasmuch 
as  we  have  Thackeray,  Balzac,  La  Fontaine,  Cervantes, 
Rabelais,  and  Chaucer  richly  entitled  to  consideration  in 
the  larger  field.  But  I  am  taking  the  stage,  for  I  am  aware 
that,  curiously,  it  is  there  that  the  fullest  meaning  of  the 
Comic  Spirit  is  in  greatest  danger  of  being  submerged. 
There  are  some  audiences  so  regaled  by  the  fun-making  of 
Eddie  Foy  and  James  T.  Powers  —  thoroughly  clever  as  far 
as  they  go  —  that  these  same  audiences  do  not  see  the  sweet 
human  defects  that  bring  one  to  the  verge  of  tears.  Why 
not,  they  argue,  call  "  'Op  o'  My  Thumb"  a  tragedy  and 
be  done  with  it? 

All  is  not  gold  that  glitters,  saith  the  proverb;  which 
means,  theatrically,  that  our  stage  is  too  filled  with  song 
and  dance  to  comprehend  the  Comic  Spirit.  Mr.  Mansfield 
never  once  builded  upon  our  reaching  the  human  and  in 
terpretative  importance  of  Moliere's  "Misanthrope."  He 
planned  simply  to  satisfy  his  own  desire  to  add  to  the  honor 
of  the  stage;  he  was  not  disappointed,  for  Moliere  was  not 
a  popular  success.  Yet  it  is  the  duty  of  our  critics  to  point 
the  way  to  what  the  Comic  Spirit  means  in  the  affairs  of 
life.  Our  stage  revivals  are  received  with  too  much  willing 
ness  to  understand  the  archaeological  shroud,  and  with  no 
cultural  perspective  to  note  wherein  the  unctuousness  and 
live  quality  lay.  It  is  part  of  the  university's  province  to 
quicken  the  past.  And  so,  I  welcome  Dr.  Curtis  Hidden 
Page's  translations  of  Moliere,  not  only  because  they  are 
an  aid  to  the  English  reader,  but  because  in  the  lucidity 
of  their  style  they  are  adequate  for  stage  presentation, 
with  practical  and  judicious  excisions.  I  believe  it  is  given 
the  audience  to  sense  the  essence  of  the  comic  without 
knowing  why  or  how.  This  is  seen  in  that  instantaneous 
response  of  the  reading  public,  for  example,  to  Aldrich,  to 


254  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Mark  Twain,  to  Holmes;  and  in  the  merry  laugh  over 
"Uncle  Remus."  I  see  the  Comic  Spirit  swell  the  meaty 
substance  of  Henry  James'  sentences.  It  is  not  that  the 
Comic  Spirit  is  wanting,  but  that  our  vision  of  it  has  been 
warped  by  other  forms  which  are,  in  comparison,  even  as 
paste  jewels.  It  is  surprising  that  we  have  so  much  of  the 
richness  of  the  comic  in  the  face  of  newspaper  supplements 
and  musical  comedies.  We  will  have  greater  plays  of  the 
Comic  Spirit  just  so  soon  as  we  are  everywhere  alive  to  its 
whole  value.  It  were  well  for  us,  indeed,  when  we  reach 
that  stage  of  culture  where  we  can  grasp  the  humor  of  our 
faith  without  in  the  least  relinquishing  its  sanctity.  In 
deep  reverence,  I  have  heard  portions  of  the  Book  of  Mark 
read  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  the  rich  essence  of  Christ's 
humor.  Comedy  and  right  living  are  closely  related 
ideas. 

At  the  beginning  of  a  chapter  on  "Greek  and  Roman 
Comedy,"  in  Professor  Matthews'  "The  Development  of 
the  Drama,"  the  author  attempts  to  indicate  a  terse  dis 
tinction  between  tragedy,  serious  drama,  and  comedy, 
basing  the  whole  upon  Brunetiere's  law  —  which  after  all 
is  only  Brunetiere's  restatement  of  the  law  of  drama  from 
time  immemorial,  —  that  all  drama  deals  with  the  exercise 
of  the  human  will.  "If,"  so  writes  Professor  Matthews, 
"the  obstacle  against  which  the  will  of  the  hero  finally 
breaks  itself  is  absolutely  insurmountable,  the  Greek  idea 
of  Fate,  for  example,  the  Christian  decree  of  Providence, 
or  the  modern  scientific  doctrine  of  heredity,  then  we  have 
tragedy,  pure  and  simple.  If  the  obstacle  is  not  absolutely 
insurmountable,  being  no  more  than  the  social  law,  some 
thing  of  man's  own  making,  and  therefore  not  finally  inex 
orable,  then  we  have  the  serious  drama.  If  the  obstacle 
is  only  the  desire  of  another  human  being,  then  the  result 
of  the  contention  of  these  two  characters  is  likely  to  give 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA         255 

us  a  comedy.  And  if  the  obstacle  is  merely  one  of  the  minor 
conventions  of  society,  then  we  may  have  farce." 

These  are  merely  perfunctory  demarcations,  with  only 
one  phase  of  the  matter  indicated;  for  in  no  way  do  the 
several  definitions  clearly  denote  the  measurement  of  the 
comic  or  tragic  clash  with  the  norm.  The  ethical,  moral 
value  of  laughter  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  makes  us  more  sane, 
by  bringing  more  truly  into  relief,  through  some  slight  in 
congruity  of  motive  or  situation,  the  benefits  of  the  normal 
life.  Throughout  his  discussion  of  Aristotle,  Butcher  is 
continually  emphasizing  the  humanistic,  philosophical  view 
of  comedy,  which  distinguishes  the  modern  from  the  ancient. 
He  lays  stress  upon  Hobbes'  claim  that  "the  passion  of 
laughter  is  nothing  else  but  a  sudden  glory,  arising  from  a 
sudden  conception  of  some  eminency  in  ourselves,  by  com 
parison  of  the  infirmity  of  others,  or  with  our  own  formerly." 
The  high  comic  poet  must  taste  of  life  healthily,  and  see 
that  it  is  good,  before  he  formulates  a  table  of  contrasts. 
Knowing  life,  as  it  is  given  the  big  man  to  know  it,  he  allows 
himself  to  throw  relations  out  of  harmony  to  the  point 
where  he  is  in  danger  of  losing  all  hold  upon  the  sane  view. 

The  Comic  Spirit,  therefore,  represents  one  of  the  highest 
factors,  if  not  the  highest,  in  life.  From  the  modern  stand 
point,  it  approaches  closer  to  the  ethical  demand,  since  it 
represents  optimism  rather  than  pessimism.  "Comic 
emotion,"  Dr.  Guthrie  claims,  "originates  from  the  co 
existence  of  a  perception  of  incongruity  and  a  persistent 
conviction,  not  probably  more  than  half  conscious  and  in 
all  likelihood  quite  inexplicit,  that  in  despite  of  such  incon 
gruity  things  are  right." 

The  Greeks  did  not  conceive  the  Comic  Spirit  in  as  pure 
a  state  as  they  did  the  Tragic  Spirit;  they  could  not  wholly 
separate  it  from  the  Bacchic  on  one  hand,  or  from  the  satiric 
on  the  other.  "The  ludicrous,"  as  defined  by  Aristotle, 


256  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

"consists  in  some  defect  or  ugliness  which  is  not  painful  or 
destructive."  The  Greeks  denied  tears  to  laughter:  they 
well-nigh  sacrificed  sympathy.  There  was  some  malice  in 
their  enjoyment  of  "discomfiture,"  as  Butcher  so  well  ana 
lyzes.  They  did  not  look  to  the  comic  for  a  criticism  of 
life  in  general;  they  narrowed  to  the  individual,  sacrificing 
the  type;  they  satirized  with  no  regard  for  sane  restraint. 
To  them  the  Comic  Spirit  dwelt  within  the  lower 
types. 

As  usual,  we  next  turn  attention  to  comedy  in  Shake 
speare,  as  illustrating  the  rich  humanistic  view  of  character, 
devoid  of  buffoonery;  one  finds  the  full  value  in  the  char 
acter  of  Viola  and  in  that  of  Makolio.  Life  is  warm,  replete 
in  sunshine  here,  with  no  poisoned  shafts,  but  ripe  in  sym 
pathy  with  human  foibles,  in  kindliness.  "Twelfth  Night" 
is  Shakespeare's  midsummer  in  comedy,  declares  Professor 
Dowden. 

In  a  broad  sense,  Moliere  is  more  nearly  representative 
of  the  Comic  Spirit  than  Shakespeare,  although  in  a  few 
instances  the  latter  attained  the  pinnacle  of  preeminence. 
The  former,  however,  clearly  illustrates  that  perfection  with 
which  the  comedy  of  manners,  exquisitely  representing  its 
age  on  one  hand,  may  likewise  embrace  a  universal  con 
sideration.  Scribe  is  Moliere  perverted. 

"I  can  never  care  for  seeing  Things  that  force  me  to 
entertain  low  Thoughts  of  my  Nature,"  wrote  Congreve, 
in  a  letter  concerning  "Humor  in  Comedy."  Take  this 
statement  in  consideration  with  the  moral  status  of  his 
theatre,  and  we  begin  to  realize  that  it  was  only  through 
his  grasp  of  the  Comic  Spirit  that  Congreve  was  preserved 
out  of  the  general  licentiousness  of  the  time.  He  had  the 
faults  of  his  social  environment;  his  genius  rose  above  them, 
however  identified  with  them,  however  shaped  by  them. 
Congreve  means  brilliancy  of  dialogue,  and  a  sense  of  comic 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA         257 

values,  as  soon  as  you  are  able  to  realize  that  he  represents 
also  a  certain  phase  of  English  dramatic  evolution.  Do 
you  remember  Lamb's  essay  "On  the  Artificial  Comedy  of 
the  Last  Century"? 

This  is  no  simple  subject  that  we  are  looking  at  so  cursorily. 
Its  proper  consideration  involves  racial  and  national  limita 
tions  and  differences.  What  you  smile  over,  I  may  not. 
What  the  English  critic  defines  as  Comedy,  the  German 
critic  may  deny;  the  one  believes  in  a  permanent  effect  of 
comedy,  the  other  in  simply  a  transitory  effect.  To  enforce 
this,  Dr.  Paul  Hamelius  quotes  Kant's  "Kritik  of  Judgment," 
which  defines  "laughter  as  an  emotion  occasioned  by  the 
sudden  resolution  of  a  roused  expectation  into  nothing." 

Therefore,  generally  speaking,  the  German  conception  of 
comedy,  as  represented  in  Schlegel,  is  wild  and  lawless;  and 
in  true  German  manner,  the  philosophers,  in  especial  Hegel, 
interpret  the  effect  this  "ignorance  of  self-restraint"  has 
upon  individuality  and  its  vital  relations  to  life,  to  cause 
and  effect. 

The  book  has  yet  to  be  written  which  will  define  the 
Comic  Spirit  in  terms  here  suggested;  the  subject  is  so 
broad  as  to  make  the  university  worker  hesitate.  We  want 
a  vital  discussion,  in  which  tendencies,  racial  and  social,  are 
indicated;  it  is  not  enough  that  individual  plays  be  defined 
in  the  scholar's  manner.  For  the  average  reader  is  not 
familiar  with  plays  of  much  wide  diversity  of  range.  That 
is  why  George  Meredith  is  perhaps  so  little  known  to  the 
general  public  as  an  analyzer  of  "comedy"  in  a  special 
essay;  it  is  full  of  learning,  of  great  familiarity  with  stage 
history  from  the  closet  standpoint.  He  views  his  subject 
with  the  eye  of  the  novelist.  Yet  his  humanistic  approach 
toward  his  discursive  point  of  view  is  replete  with  unerring 
appreciation  of  the  true  value.  "To  be  an  exalted  variety," 
he  writes,  "is  to  come  under  the  calm,  curious  eye  of  the 


258  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Comic  Spirit,  and  be  probed  for  what  you  are."  Again  he 
proclaims  that  "Comedy  is  the  fountain  of  sound  sense," 
all  expressions  of  which  are  deeply  conceived,  and  which, 
in  themselves,  refine  even  to  pain. 

V 

In  analyzing,  the  essence  of  American  humor,  Charles 
Johnston1  makes  an  excellent  distinction  between  humor 
and  wit,  in  both  of  which  there  must  be  the  element  of 
laughter.  He  writes: 

"  If  there  is  a  play  of  mind  about  difference  of  race,  using 
this  as  the  laughter-rousing  contrast  which  is  common  to 
both  wit  and  humor,  and  if  this  play  of  thought  and  feeling 
accentuates  and  heightens  the  race  difference,  and  tries  to 
show,  or  assume,  as  is  often  the  case,  that  the  race  of  the 
joker  is  endlessly  superior  to  the  other,  then  we  are  dealing 
with  wit,  an  amusing  thing  enough  in  its  way,  but  a  false 
thing,  one  which  leads  us  away  from  the  true  end  of  man. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  an  accentuation  of  the  common 
life,  bridging  the  chasm  of  race,  and  the  overplus  of  power 
is  felt  to  be  shared  in  by  the  two  races,  and  to  unite  them, 
then  we  have  genuine  humor,  something  as  vital  to  our  true 
humanity  as  is  the  Tragedy  of  Greece,  as  is  the  Evangel  of 
Galilee,  yet  something  more  joyful  and  buoyant  than  either; 
uniting  us,  not  through  comparison  or  the  sense  of  common 
danger,  but  through  the  sense  of  common  power,  a  prophecy 
of  the  golden  age,  of  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  soul." 

Consider  these  differences  carefully,  and  it  will  be  seen 
how  reversed  are  the  essential  spirits  of  comedy  and  farce. 
These  are  not  alone  two  forms  of  drama;  they  are  also  two 
outlooks  upon  life.  The  great  fault  with  the  American 
dramatist  is  that  often  he  hides  the  richness  of  his  humor 
1  Atlantic,  87: 195-202,  1901. 


EDWAKD  HAURIGAN 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA  259 

beneath  the  incongruity  of  witty  situation  ;  he  spoils  the 
good-natured  satire  of  his  intention  beneath  cartoon  motives 
and  actions.  This  was  the  weakness  of  Charles  Hoyt  (1860- 
1900),1  author  of  "  A  Parlor  Match,"  "A  Rag  Baby,"  "Old 
Sport,"  "A  Trip  to  Chinatown,"  "A  Texas  Steer,"  "A 
Temperance  Town,"  "A  Contented  Woman"  (1895),  and 
"A  Milk  White  Flag."  His  satire  was  spontaneous,  but 
be  became  self-conscious  whenever  he  attempted  to  cross 
the  border  into  farce.  His  political  pictures,  his  characteri 
zations  of  conscientious  churchmen,  his  thrusts  against  the 
sporting  craze,  the  temperance  movement,  the  militia,  and 
the  woman's  rights  movement  would  undoubtedly  have 
placed  him  among  the  foremost  American  dramatists  had 
he  not  persisted  in  upsetting  his  good  work,  which  lay  so 
largely  in  his  ability  to  contrast,  and  in  his  resorting  to 
the  ridiculous  and  the  incongruous.  Hence,  in  Hoyt's  plays 
there  was  an  admixture  of  insight  and  shallowness. 

I  should  say,  therefore,  that  his  farce-comedies  were 
marked  by  humor,  but  were  spoiled  by  the  form  of  farce. 
As  for  Edward  Harrigan  (1845-1911),  he  must  be  character 
ized  as  a  delineator  of  a  special  type,  and  with  his  partner, 
Tony  Hart,  he  built  up  the  reputation  which  won  him 
support.  For  the  two  were  funmakers,  as  Weber  and  Fields 
and  the  Rogers  Brothers  were  funmakers.  In  1871,  Harrigan 
and  Hart  began  their  careers  in  "The  Mulcaney  Twins"; 
then  there  followed  in  quick  succession  "  The  Day  We  Went 
West,"  "The  Doyle  Brothers,"  "The  Major"  (1877),  "Old 
Lavender"  (1877),  "The  Mulligan  Guards' Ball"  (1879), 
"The  Mulligan  Guards'  Chowder"  (1879),  "The  Mulligan 
Guards'  Christmas,"  "The  Mulligan  Guards'  Surprise," 
and  others. 

Like  the  elder  Tyrone  Power's,  Harrigan's  pieces  depended 

1  See  the  excellent  article  by  Atherton  Brownell  in  Bostonian, 
3:386,  Jan.,  1896. 


260          THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

upon  his  acting.1  There  was  no  art  in  the  writing  of  them, 
and  they  would  not  read  well  were  they  put  into  print. 
Nor  can  we  say  that  they  were  typical  of  American  humor. 
In  the  street  sense,  George  M.  Cohan  represents  the  popular 
conception  of  American  wit,  and  his  ability  should  not  be 
overlooked.  But  he  does  not  in  any  way  approach  the  true 
humor  of  George  Ade,  whose  style,  even  before  he  became 
a  playwright,  was  sufficiently  conversational  in  his  books 
to  point  the  way  to  the  stage.  That  road,  however,  came 
into  being  by  the  merest  chance  in  1902. 

Ade  was  born  in  Kentland,  Indiana,  on  February  9,  1866, 
his  father  being  a  prominent  banker  of  the  town.  In  his 
youth,  the  boy  tasted  of  all  that  country  life  upon  which 
he  was  to  look  back  with  gentle  banter  and  kindly  laughter. 
In  1887,  he  graduated  from  Purdue  University,  and  there 
upon  began  his  profession  of  journalism,  which  was  to  lead 
him  to  authorship. 

By  1890,  he  was  on  the  Chicago  Daily  News,  associating 
with  Harry  B.  Smith,  the  librettist  of  "Robin  Hood"  and 
"Rob  Roy";  Peter  F.  Dunne,  alias  "Mr.  Dooley";  and 
Charles  B.  Dillingham,  who,  once  the  personal  represen 
tative  of  Miss  Julia  Marlowe,  is  now  one  of  the  prominent 
managers  of  the  time.  Ade's  strides  were  determined  and 
rapid.  In  1894,  he  became  a  member  of  the  staff  of  the 

1  He  was  also  the  author  of  "Darby  and  Lanty"  (1876)  ;  "  Is- 
caine"  (1876);  "St.  Patrick's  Day  Parade"  (1876);  "Ireland 
versus  Italy"  (1876);  "Lorgaire"  (1878);  "The  Major"  (1881); 
"Squatter  Sovereignty"  (1882);  "  The  Blackbird "  (1882);  "Mor- 
decai  Lyons"  (1882);  "McSorley's  Inflation"  (1882);  "The 
Muddy'sDay"  (1883);  " Cordelia's  Aspirations "  (1883);  "Dan's 
Tribulations  "(1884);  "Investigation"  (1884);  "  The  Grip  "(1885); 
"The  Leather  Patch"  (1886);  "The  O'Reagans"  (1886);  "Mc- 
Nooney's  Visit  "  (1887);  "Pete"  (1887);  "Waddy  Googan"  (1888); 
"Reilly  and  the  Four  Hundred  "  (1890);  "The  Last  of  the  Hogans  " 
(1891);  "The  Woollen  Stocking"  (1893);  "Notoriety"  (1894). 
See  Mackaye  and  Wingate's  "Actors  of  To-day  in  America." 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA          261 

Chicago  Record,  remaining  there  seven  years,  and  occupying 
the  desk  made  vacant  through  the  death  of  Eugene  Field. 
His  "Artie"  book  and  his  "Fables  in  Slang "  were  written 
during  these  years.  In  1900,  he  sailed  for  China,  Japan,  and 
the  Philippines.  Thus  far  the  reporter  was  seeing  life  in 
various  hues. 

Then,  on  his  return,  a  young  Chicago  composer,  Mr. 
Wathall,  asked  Ade  to  write  the  "book"  for  a  musical  score 
he  was  preparing  for  an  amateur  club.  But  the  actual  work 
had  not  progressed  far  when  Henry  W.  Savage  appeared 
upon  the  scene,  and  Ade  entered  as  a  factor  in  the  American 
drama,  with  "The  Sultan  of  Sulu."  Then  followed  in  quick 
succession,  "Peggy  from  Paris,"  "The  County  Chairman," 
"The  Sho-Gun,"  "The  College  Widow,"  "  The  Bad  Samari 
tan,"  and  "Just  Out  of  College."  "Father  and  the  Boys" 
is  his  most  recent  successful  piece. 

All  of  these  plays  apply  poignantly  to  American  con 
ditions;  they  make  use  of  a  fresh  way  of  forcing  the  in 
congruous  elements  of  "news"  to  act  themselves  visibly 
before  an  audience.  They  are  loaded  down  with  a  humor 
which  is  that  of  the  man  on  the  street  —  perfectly  legiti 
mate  humor,  even  though  viewing  life  from  a  lower  level 
of  values. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  predominant  object  of  "The 
Sho-Gun,"  which  is  a  Korean  opera.  "  It  is  meant,"  explains 
Mr.  Ade  himself,  "  to  be  an  indirect  treatise  on  the  worship 
of  titles,  the  formation  of  trusts,  the  potency  of  the  American 
'pull/  Yankee  commercial  invasion,  legal  manoeuvring, 
advertising  enterprise,  and  other  subjects  of  timely  interest." 

The  saving  grace  in  our  strenuous  existence  is  our  ap 
preciation  of  our  vagaries;  that  is  why  Mr.  Ade's  comic 
operas  are  as  stimulating  as  good  cartoons.  Besides  sup 
plying  the  sinuous  lines  of  color,  they  have  ideas  behind 
the  detail.  In  this  respect,  Mr.  Ade  is  not  so  very  far  re- 


.262  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

moved  from  W.  S.  Gilbert,  though  lacking  in  facility  and 
in  grace.  He  has  defined  American  drama  as  one  in  which 
American  characters  are  dealt  with  "in  such  manner  as  to 
increase  our  self-respect  and  to  give  us  a  new  insight  into 
our  characteristics  as  a  people." 

Mr.  Ade's  humor  has  all  the  essence  of  good  comedy,  but 
its  form  is  unsteady  and  is  too  imitative  of  the  conventional 
musical  comedy  and  of  farce.  I  do  not  believe  I  am  far 
wrong  in  the  contention  that  our  stage  has  yet  to  under 
stand  the  true  meaning  of  comedy,  and  especially  so  when 
it  starts  out  to  create  comedy  in  a  spirit  which  is  really 
farce. 

However  incomplete  our  discussion,  we  have  at  least 
come  to  comprehend  the  justice  of  accusing  our  stage  of  mis 
interpreting  the  true,  permanent  function  of  comedy.  We 
need  a  new  nomenclature  in  order  to  divest  the  pure  type  of 
its  confusing  deviations.  Because  we  have  lost  the  rich 
meaning  of  comedy,  we  find  it  difficult,  save  in  "  An  Enemy 
of  the  People,"  to  understand  the  Comic  Spirit  in  Ibsen,  and 
it  is  only  by  this  realization  that  we  will  grasp  the  full  sig 
nificance  of  Ibsen's  optimism.  Humor  is  innate;  it  is  depend 
ent  as  much  upon  a  quick  fancy  as  upon  a  quick  response 
to  the  actual.  Though  it  is  not  self-conscious,  our  efforts 
toward  culture  ignore  the  strength  that  comes  from  a 
general  understanding  of  the  Comic  Spirit.  Our  American 
dramatists  mostly  reflect  their  humor  as  an  external  thing, 
though  there  is  a  difference  of  excellence  between  Mark 
Twain  and  George  Ade;  between  George  Ade  and  George 
M.  Cohan.  Raise  the  taste  for  the  true  Comic  Spirit,  which 
saturates  humanity  first,  and  creates  situation  secondarily, 
and  the  American  dramatist  will  become  more  vital  in  his 
whole  effect.  The  Comic  Spirit  exists  in  our  literature,  but 
not  so  in  our  drama;  because,  in  bulk,  our  plays  do  not  stand 
the  test  of  literature. 


FORMS  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA         263 

And  yet,  the  theatre-goer  who  thinks  at  all  on  these  ques 
tions  as  to  the  essence  of  drama  will  feel  that  something  big 
should  eventually  come  from  American  humor  on  the  one 
hand,  and  from  our  national  sanity  on  the  other.  Certainly, 
when  the  accomplishment  reaches  us,  it  will  be  fraught  in 
large  measure  with  the  Comic  Spirit.1 

1  In  a  consideration  of  Comedy,  the  general  reader  is  referred 
to: 

"An  Essay  on  Comedy  and  the  Uses  of  the  Comic  Spirit."  George 
Meredith.  Scribner,  1905. 

"Representative  English  Comedies."  Edited  by  C.  M.  Gayley. 
Macmillan,  1903. 

"Moliere."  Translated  by  Curtis  Hidden  Page.  (2  vols.)  Put 
nam,  1908.  Besides  the  excellence  of  the  English  versions,  the 
books  contain  worthy  introductory  notes  and  a  full  bibliography. 
We  would  have  been  glad  to  see  somewhere  in  these  otherwise 
satisfactory  volumes  a  fuller  analysis  of  the  Comic  Spirit  in  MoliSre. 

"Aristotle's  Theory  of  Poetry  and  Fine  Art."  S.  M.  Butcher. 
Macmillan,  1907. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

A  NEW   OR  A  NATIONAL  THEATRE 

HERETOFORE,  everything  that  has  been  written  about  the 
need  for  a  New  or  a  National  Theatre  in  America  has  been 
of  a  speculative  character.  Even  the  excellent  statistical 
book  by  William  Archer  and  Granville  Barker,  —  "  Scheme 
and  Estimates  for  a  National  Theatre,"  —  dealing  with  the 
conditions  for  endowment  as  they  exist  in  London,  is  of 
a  purely  chimerical,  though  serviceable  and  suggestive, 
nature. 

But  now,  we  have  actually  had  a  theatre  in  the  flesh,  so 
to  speak,  one  worked  on  principles  far  different  from  the 
commercial  theatre,  one  raised  during  its  initial  period  far 
beyond  the  need  of  financial  worry,  one  given  a  substantial 
building.  And  what  is  the  result?  During  a  trial  of  two 
years,  the  physical  proportions  of  the  theatre  itself  were 
found  to  be  too  large,  and  the  deficit  in  the  treasury  stood 
four  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

The  question  is  no  longer,  will  a  New  Theatre  succeed  — 
but,  has  the  idea  any  chance  whatsoever  under  present 
theatrical  conditions?  For  it  must  not  be  denied  that  the 
elements  of  success  for  any  movement  pointing  to  the 
betterment  of  a  national  art  and  of  a  National  or  New 
Theatre  cannot  be  kept  aloof  from  theatrical  conditions  as 
they  exist. 

No  art  given  over  to  a  dilettante  movement,  no  art  sep 
arated  from  the  civic  life  of  a  people  and  set  up  in  the  minds 


A  NEW  OR  A  NATIONAL  THEATRE     265 

of  a  few  individuals  intent  on  improving  the  drama  accord 
ing  to  their  personal  tastes  or  according  to  a  tradition 
foreign  to  the  country  in  which  the  theatre  is  to  exist,  may 
ever  hope  for  an  appeal  wide  enough  to  affect  national  taste. 

Let  us  look  carefully  into  the  subject,  and  try  to  reach 
some  conclusions  as  to  the  influence  of  the  New  Theatre  as 
it  actually  existed,  from  November,  1909,  to  May,  1911.  If, 
as  the  promoters  of  the  scheme  claimed,  it  was  not  the 
object  of  the  Directors  to  antagonize  the  commercial  theatre; 
if,  as  was  emphatically  declared  at  the  outset,  they  did  not 
intend  to  appeal  to  the  few,  but  to  reach  the  masses;  if,  as 
they  further  asserted,  they  were  to  have  nothing  to  do  with 
snobbishness,  even  though  their  endowment  or  their  sub 
sidy  or  their  income  —  call  it  by  whatever  name  you  please 
—  came  from  wealthy  sources,  then  what  was  their  intent? 
Were  they  to  force  the  public  to  take  what  was  caviare,  or 
were  they  to  appeal  to  the  public  taste,  as  it  is  now  trained 
by  the  commercial  manager? 

It  would  seem  that,  apart  from  the  mere  organization  of 
the  theatre  idea,  per  se,  which  included  much  of  the  detail 
so  graphically  set  down  by  Archer  and  Barker,  the  chief 
concern  of  any  new  artistic  movement  toward  the  better 
ment  of  theatrical  condition  would  be  in  organizing  a  public 
sufficiently  strong  to  assure  the  independent  existence  of  a 
National  or  a  New  Theatre,  which,  having  been  founded 
upon  endowment  or  subsidy,  soon  would  become  self- 
supporting  through  the  suffrage  of  the  people.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  toward  the  end  of  two  years,  Winthrop 
Ames,  as  first  Director  of  the  New  Theatre,  not  only  demon 
strated  that  there  was  an  audience  for  artistic  productions, 
but  he  met  difficulties  with  a  dignity  commensurate  with 
the  dignity  of  the  enterprise.  He  was  handicapped,  at  the 
outset,  with  three  negative  conditions.  First,  the  Board  of 
Directors  was  not  as  generous  in  its  support  as  it  should 


266  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

have  been;  second,  the  subscribers  were  not  as  cordial  as 
they  promised  to  be  to  the  repertory  idea;  and  finally,  good 
plays,  other  than  those  cornered  by  the  commercial  manager, 
were  not  plentiful. 

The  New  Theatre1  was  erected  by  a  group  of  wealthy 
men  —  hence  its  popular  stigma,  "The  Millionaire  Play 
house"  —  who  at  first  invested  their  money  in  the  scheme 
with  no  idea  of  receiving  or  of  claiming  any  returns  on  their 
investments,  other  than  the  privileges  granted  them  within 
the  theatre  during  its  active  season.  Whatever  profits 
accrued  —  and  it  was  not  expected  that  there  would  be 
any  profits  for  at  least  three  years  —  were  to  be  handed  over 
to  the  theatre  as  new  capital.  With  this  financial  backing, 
the  institution  could  be  considered  neither  endowed  nor 
subsidized. 

Nor  could  we  call  the  theatre  as  outlined  for  New  York  a 
National  Theatre,  inasmuch  as  American  theatrical  art 
is  too  closely  allied  with  British  art  to  ignore  the  British 
dramatist.  Therefore,  the  name  "New  Theatre,"  while 
non-committal,  was  satisfactory,  although  "Repertory 
Theatre"  might  have  been  better.  But  the  name  would 
not  have  mattered,  had  the  idea  and  spirit  behind  the 
organization  been  sustained  by  the  Board  of  Directors. 

Some  years  ago,  in  discussing  the  mission  of  the  modern 
magazine,  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  asserted  that  it  was  doing  as 
much  as  any  other  factor  toward  deprovincializing  America. 
But  he  failed  to  mention  among  the  great  institutional 
forces  of  modern  life  the  increasingly  important  position 
occupied  by  the  theatre,  a  position  consequent  upon  an 
increase  in  theatrical  territory,  and  upon  an  undermining  of 
the  long  existent  puritanical  prejudice  against  the  theatre  as 
a  source  of  iniquity. 

1  On  Central  Park  West  and  Sixty-second  Street,  New  York 
City. 


A    NEW    OR    A    NATIONAL    THEATRE    267 

There  are  over  three  thousand  recognized  houses  of  amuse 
ment  in  this  country  —  a  large  proportion  of  them  in  small 
towns  along  the  railroad  lines  connecting  the  chief  theatrical 
centres.  To  cut  one  off,  as  Mrs.  Fiske  and  David  Belasco 
were  cut,  from  these  intermediate  playhouses  between 
large  cities,  was  business  and  artistic  annihilation.  This 
was  the  method  adopted  by  the  Theatrical  Syndicate, 
whenever  a  rival  was  in  the  way. 

The  ethical  responsibility  of  catering  to  the  amusement 
interests  of  a  public  seems  incompatible  with  the  customary 
theatrical  idea.  In  the  eyes  of  business,  art  is  experimental, 
financial  returns  on  investment  an  actuality.  The  commercial 
tone  in  drama  has  resulted  in  three  dangers  characteristic 
of  Trust  ideas.  First,  until  recently,  it  has  very  largely 
discouraged  home  production  by  bringing  to  America  foreign 
plays  already  proven  and  already  advertised.  Second,  it 
has,  by  pleasing  the  eye,  given  a  minimum  of  thought  to  feed 
upon.  Third,  from  the  standpoint  of  organization,  it  has, 
by  the  variety  and  largeness  of  its  interests,  lost  much  of  the 
essence  and  concentration  that  should  mark  an  intelligent 
handling  of  the  situation. 

On  the  score  of  mere  mechanical  technique,  on  the  score 
of  the  booking  system,  nothing  may  be  said  against  theatrical 
organization.  It  is,  however,  from  an  abuse  of  the  method 
and  a  narrowness  of  the  motive,  that  the  idea  of  a  National 
Theatre,  of  a  New  Theatre,  or  of  any  theatre  pledged  to  the 
high  seriousness  of  dramatic  art,  first  came  into  being. 

It  is  a  wrong  theory  that  one  may  divorce  business  from 
dramatic  art;  only  by  material  returns  is  one  able  to  measure 
popular  appeal  and  popular  response.  There  might,  at 
first  glance,  seem  to  be  insuperable  barriers  in  the  way  of 
the  establishment  of  a  National  or  even  of  a  New  Theatre, 
but  apart  from  the  human  reasons,  this  conception  is  due  to  a 
wrong  idea  as  to  the  exact  province  of  an  endowed  or  sub- 


268  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

sidized  institution,  among  a  number  of  theatres  run  strictly 
on  a  commercial  basis. 

As  Percy  Mackaye  has  reiterated,  both  in  speech  and  in 
writing,  the  obliteration  of  the  commercial  manager  from 
the  theatrical  horizon  would  in  no  way  alter  theatrical  con 
ditions  as  they  exist,  although  the  largest  obstacle  to  reform 
might  be  removed.  The  unthinking  theatre  man  is  one  with 
surplus  business  instinct,  and  with  little  innate  feeling  for 
the  product  he  handles.1  He  lacks  spiritual  refinement;  he 
underestimates,  if  he  estimates  at  all,  the  spiritual  and 
mental  demands  of  his  public.  Once  he  has  found  "a  good 
thing,"  he  is  not  psychologist  enough  to  understand  that  a 
surfeit  of  a  particular  good  thing  dulls  popular  response. 

From  this  surfeit  has  grown  the  unfortunate  condition  of 
long  runs,  where  the  actor,  whatever  the  extent  of  his 
ability,  is  allowed  to  work  in  ruts,  where  there  is  no  chang 
ing  of  demands  made  upon  his  diversified  talents,  if  he  has  any 
talent  at  all.  The  work  of  the  American  actor  has  done 
much  for  the  American  manager;  it  has  made  the  best  of  a 
bad  bargain;  and  in  a  season  one  is  surprised  to  find  isolated 
bits  of  acting  which,  nurtured  on  a  repertoire  basis,  might 
develop  into  distinctive  art. 

There  is  a  tendency  to  establish  in  this  country  a  stock 
system,  somewhat  different  from  the  old-time  stock  days, 
yet  with  the  fundamental  idea  of  giving  to  the  actor  the 
asset  of  a  repertoire.2  But  in  the  stock  company,  which 

1  See   Robert  Grau's  "The  Business  Man  in  the  Amusement 
World,"  1910. 

2  The  ideal  stock  plays  are   "Shore  Acres,"   "Sag  Harbor," 
"Way  Down  East,"  "Alabama,"  "Arizona,"  "St.  Elmo,"  "Secret 
Service."     Plays  that  are  released  for  stock  often  make  fortunes 
for  their  authors.    The  final  step  in  the  progress  of  a  play  is  to  sell 
one's  rights  to   the  Kinetoscopic  Theatre.     Playwrights,  in  the 
latter  instance,  think  it  best  to  do  this;  otherwise  the  play  is  stolen 
and  mutilated.    In  one  summer  stock  company,  it  was  found  that 


A  NEW  OR  A  NATIONAL  THEATRE     269 

flourishes  particularly  in  the  Spring  and  Summer  seasons, 
there  is  an  inclination  to  overwork  the  actor,  even  though 
there  is  a  tendency  to  raise  thereby  the  vaudeville  houses 
to  a  plane  of  legitimacy.  And  what  is  more,  those  cities 
that  have  these  stock  companies  benefit  by  the  revival  of 
plays  that  have  had  their  season,  and  would  otherwise  be 
shelved. 

When  it  was  announced  that  New  York  was  to  have  a 
New  Theatre,  there  was  much  adverse  criticism.  Part  of 
this  came  from  quarters  naturally  antagonistic  to  any  as 
sured  competitor  in  the  field.  But  despite  the  unsuccessful 
outcome  of  a  two  years'  experiment,  the  New  Theatre  was 
in  no  way  a  competitor.  While  it  was  not  as  invigorating  as 
the  Theatre  Antoine  and  not  as  institutional,  because  not  as 
old,  as  the  Theatre  Fran£aise,  it  gave  us  an  art  faith  and 
represented  earnest  endeavor. 

Suspicion  was  instantly  thrown  upon  the  idea  of  a  New 
Theatre  because  of  its  "aristocratic"  origins,  because  of  its 
conservative  methods  of  changing  bills,  and  because  of  its 
affiliation  with  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House,  from  which 
source  it  was  to  draw  material  for  light  opera  of  the  type  of 
"Madame  Butterfly."  This  connection  was  found  to  be 
unprofitable  after  the  first  season,  and  so,  in  one  respect,  the 
New  Theatre  became  what  it  started  out  to  be,  a  home 
devoted  entirely  to  the  interests  of  drama. 

The  movement,  under  Director  Winthrop  Ames,  began 
with  a  prejudice  to  combat.  Others  had  been  ahead  of  him 
in  the  field  and  had  failed ;  hence,  there  was  a  general  dis 
trust  of  any  movement  which  might  be  carried  on  in  aloof 
ness.  When  there  was  an  endeavor  on  foot  several  years  ago 
to  establish  a  National  Art  Theatre  Society,  however  wild 

a  play  was  being  given,  entitled  "The  Tavern  Keeper's  Daughter," 
—  a  mixture  of  "The  Girl  of  the  Golden  West"  and  "Alabama," 
with  a  flavor  of  "Arizona." 


270  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

and  unpractical  the  ideas  behind  it,  there  was  a  definite 
determination  to  incorporate  within  itself  the  intellectual 
energy  of  outside  institutions.  Upon  its  Board  of  Directors 
there  were  to  have  been  represented  a  member  each  from 
the  American  Dramatists  Club,  Columbia  University,  the 
Federated  Arts  Society,  the  Authors  Club,  even  the  Bar 
Association  and  the  Chamber  of  Commerce. 

In  its  initial  period,  the  New  Theatre  depended  too  much 
upon  a  close  policy.  And  it  did  not  reach  out  for  material; 
hence  it  failed  to  secure  much  encouragement  from  any 
prominent  American  dramatist.  This  might  have  been 
because  of  two  reasons:  first,  the  American  dramatist  of  note, 
being  astute,  may  have  wanted  to  see  how  the  venture  was 
to  succeed  before  becoming  identified  with  it;  and  second, 
the  American  dramatist  may  have  wanted  to  protect  his 
income,  based  on  royalties.  For  his  play,  as  accepted  by 
the  New  Theatre,  would  probably  run  no  more  than  thirty 
or  forty  times  during  a  season,  whereas  the  commercial 
manager  would  assure  him  an  uninterrupted  run  of  one 
hundred  and  forty  or  fifty  nights.  But  the  playwright  and 
the  manager  at  first  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  avowed 
intention  of  the  New  Theatre  —  a  faith  kept  for  instance  in 
the  case  of  "The  Nigger,"  which  had  a  road  run  almost  as 
sensational  as  that  of  Thomas  A.  Dixon's  "  The  Clansman  " 
—  was  to  become  a  responsible  advance  agent  for  pieces 
whose  excellence  deserved  pecuniary  support. 

There  was  no  legitimate  basis  for  mistrust  of  the  New 
Theatre  because  its  Board  of  Directors  thought  best  to 
appoint  a  member  of  the  established  Theatrical  Trust  as  an 
officer  in  the  institution.  This  was  done  purely  because 
that  member  could  bring  his  force  of  experience  to  bear  upon 
a  new  problem.  It  is  one  thing  to  regard  drama  as  a  closet 
product  or  as  an  art  form  subject  to  criticism,  but  if  a  theatre 
is  to  be  run  at  all,  it  must  deal  with  drama  practically, 


Photo,  by  Otto  Sarony 


MINNIE  MADDERX  FISKE 


A  NEW  OR  A  NATIONAL  THEATRE     271 

exercising  the  elements  of  selection,  expenditure,  and  pub 
licity  for  its  dissemination  through  proper  channels.  That 
is  why  a  member  of  the  commercial  theatre  was  made 
treasurer. 

Much  ill-feeling  was  manifest  against  the  New  Theatre 
because  the  Director  selected  so  many  English  actors  for  his 
casts,  but  this  was  very  likely  due  to  the  fact  that  the  best 
American  players  were  tied  up  with  contracts,  and  also 
because  the  English  actor  is  better  accustomed  to  the 
repertory  idea.  Miss  Marlowe  and  Mr.  So  them  opened 
the  theatre  in  a  sumptuous  production  of  "Antony  and 
Cleopatra,"  but,  apart  from  whether  or  not  the  play  suited 
their  talents,  their  ideas  were  not  in  accord  with  those  of  the 
New  Theatre.  Miss  Annie  Russell  became  a  member  of  the 
company  for  a  period,  but  in  no  drama  was  she  happily 
placed;  so  she  resigned.  The  Director  made  a  mistake 
when  he  mounted  "Becky  Sharp,"  for  instead  of  having 
Mrs.  Fiske  in  Langdon  Mitchell's  version  of  "  Vanity  Fair," 
he  asked  Marie  Tempest,  and  chose  Cosmo  Gordon-Lennox's 
version. 

It  was  the  general  belief  some  years  ago,  when  the  scheme 
for  a  National  Theatre  was  agitated  in  this  country,  that 
there  would  be  no  reason  why,  as  soon  as  the  sentiment  was 
thoroughly  grounded,  the  plans  should  not  be  put  into 
execution,  as  the  practical  outcome  of  a  sane  idealism,  one 
which,  knowing  the  limits  of  an  art  and  realizing  the  differ 
ences  beween  dramaturgy  and  literature,  seeks  for  a  balance 
between  the  two.  But  as  soon  as  a  definite  building  was 
erected,  the  order  of  reasoning  was  reversed.  The  question 
then  became :  Was  the  New  Theatre  established  on  the  sup 
position  that  there  was  a  public,  other  than  a  subscription 
public,  to  fill  its  floor  and  galleries?  The  university  spirit 
might  supply  it  with  an  audience  of  literary  tasters,  but  the 
average  public  refuses  to  be  bored.  Besides  which,  the  average 


272  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

public  has  limited  means  for  enjoyment,  and  when  they 
went  to  the  galleries  of  the  New  Theatre,  they  found  the 
strain  upon  the  ear,  and  particularly  upon  the  eye,  more  than 
they  could  stand.  Hence  the  wage  earner  stayed  away,  and 
it  was  rarely  that  the  auditorium  of  the  New  Theatre  was 
filled.1 

In  fact,  at  the  outset,  the  institution  was  confronted  with 
the  correlated  difficulties  of  having  to  select  a  repertory  for  a 
public  which  it  had  to  train.  But  instead  of  training  that 
public,  the  New  Theatre  dealt  too  much  with  novelty.  It 
only  realized  too  late  that  the  first  thing  it  should  have 
done  was  to  have  accustomed  its  actors  to  a  permanent 
stock  of  plays,  sufficiently  varied  to  satisfy  the  boxholders 
while  new  productions  were  in  preparation.  It  did  not 
realize  that  if  it  departed  beyond  that  all-important  aim  of 
repertory,  it  would  lift  itself  out  of  the  immediate  public 
influence,  and  serve  only  as  an  example  of  what  might  be, 
after  another  institution  had  educated  public  taste  to  re 
ceive  it.  The  Director  was  wrong  in  his  disregard  of  demo 
cratic  interests,  though  he  might  with  reason  have  pointed 
to  his  production  of  Galsworthy's  "Strife"  with  some  show 
of  pride. 

It  is  always  well  to  bear  in  mind  the  purposes  of  a  National 
Theatre — a  home  where  dramatic  art  may  be  encouraged  in 
an  ideal  building,  where  a  repertory  of  dignified  and  per 
manent  worth  may  be  fostered,  where  the  American  play 
may  be  encouraged,  where  a  standard  of  pronunciation  may 
be  adopted,  a  conservatory  established  for  the  education  of 
the  actor,  and  a  dramatic  library  founded  for  those  volumes 
which  are  now  foolishly  being  scattered. 

1  The  New  Theatre,  however,  gave  several  performances  at 
reduced  prices,  especially  for  the  wage  earners,  and  the  immediate 
response  was  gratifying,  though  the  theatre  itself  lost  money  in  the 
venture. 


A  NEW  OR  A  NATIONAL  THEATRE     273 

With  a  building  of  ideal  proportions  in  New  York  —  con 
sidered  to  be  the  commercial  centre  of  the  New  World, 
even  though  some  might  doubt  its  claim  to  being  the  art 
centre  —  one  cannot  take  from  New  York  the  fact  that  it  is 
the  most  cosmopolitan  city  in  the  Union,  and  that,  for  this 
reason,  more  people  of  the  different  sections  would  have  an 
opportunity  of  passing  through  the  doors  of  a  New  Theatre 
there  than  elsewhere. 

The  institution,  at  the  outset,  was  handicapped  by  too 
large  a  building,  the  foundations  of  which  were  originally 
based  on  plans  accepted  by  Heinrich  Conried,  whose  ample 
ideas  were  colored  by  his  opera  ambitions.  This  building 
they  were  obliged  to  abandon  after  a  tenure  of  two  years, 
by  their  move  showing  that  a  New  Theatre  does  not  imply 
a  large  building,  but  one  happily  proportioned  for  all  neces 
sities.  Had  the  theatre  not  been  subjected  to  the  hiatus 
of  a  year  —  during  which  time  probably  another  building 
will  be  erected,  more  in  accord  with  the  requirements  of  the 
spoken  drama  —  one  might  have  been  justified  in  con 
cluding  that  an  artistic  and  financial  success  would  have 
resulted  in  similar  theatres  being  built  in  the  large  cities  of 
the  country.  But  inasmuch  as  the  New  Theatre  has  had 
a  set  back,  cities  such  as  Boston,  Philadelphia,  and  Chicago 
are  justified  in  attempting  a  National  Theatre  from  their 
own  individual  viewpoints. 

People  approached  the  first  year  of  the  New  Theatre  with 
every  hope  that  it  would  select  a  repertory  sufficiently  catho 
lic  to  satisfy  the  masses,  that  it  would  present  dramas  — 
apart  from  Shakespearean  revivals  —  sufficiently  strong  to 
show  the  commercial  manager  that  it  pays  to  select  plays 
of  true  worth;  that,  finally,  it  would,  through  its  successes, 
afford  new  incentive  to  the  playwright,  and  infuse  into  the 
general  theatrical  situation  assurance  that  good  dramatic 
art  is  only  that  art  which  is  supported  through  the  suffrage 


274  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

of  the  people.  The  New  Theatre  strove  earnestly  to  fulfill 
these  requirements,  but  opposition,  together  with  its  own 
errors,  handicapped  it.  The  period  of  its  tenure  was  too 
short,  however,  to  judge  finally;  but  during  its  two  years  it 
had  ample  opportunity  to  alter  its  course  on  the  mistakes  of 
its  first  season.  The  Board  of  Directors — standing  to  lose,  even 
though  the  figures  mounted  to  four  hundred  thousand  dollars 

—  should  have  approached  their  task  in  this  manner:  After  a 
year,  has  the  institution,  in  its  repertoire  and  in  its  acting, 
made  any  artistic  impress  upon  the  theatrical  situation?   After 
four  years  —  for  it  takes  that  long  to  balance  the  machinery 

—  does  dramatic  art  pay?    If  it  does  not,  then  the  Directors 
would  have  had  a  right  to  question  whether  the  New  Theatre 
had  been  presenting  good  dramatic  art,  by  which  we  mean 
high  art  for  the  greatest  numbers.     But  the  Directors  did 
not  keep  full  faith  with  the  idea  of  a  New  Theatre.    After  the 
first  year  had  proven  that  the  building  was  too  large,  while 
alterations  were  being  made  for  the  second  season,  work 
should  have  been  started  upon  a  new  playhouse.      For  it 
was  easily  discernible  that  such  solid  physical  proportions 
as  marked  the  New  Theatre  could  never  be  properly  altered. 
Then  there  would  have  been  no  necessity  to  have  a  period 
of  waiting,  such  as  the  New  Theatre  will  have  to  go  through 
when  the  season  of  1911-12  begins.     The  resumption  of 
an  idea  is  difficult  to  foster. 

Under  the  management  of  Director  Ames,  the  New  Theatre 
scheme  did  not  fail.1  It  is  something  for  a  manager  to  be 
able  to  boast  that  under  his  tenure  of  two  years,  he  pro- 

1  See  W.  P.  Eaton's  "At  the  New  Theatre  and  Others; "  "Scheme 
and  Estimates  for  a  National  Theatre"  by  William  Archer  and 
Granville  Barker;  and  Henry  Arthur  Jones's  "Renascence  of  the 
English  Drama."  I  would  refer  the  reader  to  three  books  dealing 
with  the  English  situation  :  Mario  Borso's  "The  English  Stage  of 
To-day;"  P.  P.  Howe's  "The  Repertory  Theatre;"  and  Desmond 
McCarthy's  "The  Court  Theatre:  1904-1907." 


A  NEW  OR  A  NATIONAL  THEATRE     275 

duced  such  an  excellent  spectacle  as  Maeterlinck's  "The 
Blue  Bird,"  such  an  effective  social  piece  as  Galsworthy's 
"Strife,"  such  a  distinctive  study  of  characters  as  Pinero's 
"The  Thunderbolt,"  and  such  a  poignant  morality  as 
Maeterlinck's  "Sister  Beatrice."  He  could  have  done  no 
better  than  to  profit  by  the  sensible  and  effective  tastes 
of  his  assistant  producers,  Hamilton  Bell  and  George 
Foster  Platt.  No  commercial  manager  could  have  so 
excelled  in  the  mounting  of  Miss  Peabody's  "The  Piper," 
or  of  certain  scenes  in  that  peculiarly  exotic  piece,  "The 
Witch,"  which  was  Americanized  from  the  Danish,  or  of 
Shakespearean  comedies.  Besier's  "Don"  was  enjoyable, 
George  Paston's  "Nobody's  Daughter"  far  above  the 
ordinary.  In  fact,  the  New  Theatre  idea  cannot  be  called 
a  failure. 

Mr.  Ames  created  a  position  of  Literary  Director  —  a 
person  to  be  largely  responsible  for  directing  proper  material 
in  New  Theatre  channels.  After  the  first  year,  the  scope  of 
this  position  was  altered.  In  the  first  season,  two  thousand 
manuscripts  were  read,  and  from  this  deluge,  no  great  Ameri 
can  product  was  forthcoming.  Edward  Sheldon's  "The 
Nigger,"  whose  one  excellence  was  its  theatrical  effect, 
even  though  the  arrangement  of  its  historical  ideas  was 
false  to  the  South  in  the  way  that  Mrs.  Stowe's  "Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin"  was  false  to  the  South  —  was  a  success. 

In  reviewing  the  New  Theatre  idea  and  its  existence  of 
two  years,  I  cannot  but  regard,  with  pleasurable  feeling, 
the  Shakespearean  productions.  We  advance  by  means 
of  our  mistakes,  and  the  Directors  should  have  realized  this. 
They  registered  no  vital  complaint  outside  the  fact  of  losing. 
My  grievance  against  the  two  seasons  is  directed  against 
the  inability  of  the  New  Theatre  to  encourage  the  American 
drama,  even  if  it  had  had  to  offer  special  financial  induce 
ments  legitimately  to  take  the  American  dramatist  away 


276  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

from  the  commercial  manager.  Yet,  when  it  came  to  select 
ing  revivals  from  the  American  drama  of  the  past,  I  would 
sympathize  with  the  quandary  of  any  Director.  For  the 
American  drama  is  in  the  making,  and  a  theatre  cannot 
support  itself  on  experiments  that  fail.  Even  an  art  theatre, 
however  subsidized,  must  pay. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

THE   NEED   FOR   A   DRAMATIC    LIBRARY 

THERE  have  been  many  movements  on  foot  to  establish  a 
dramatic  library  in  New  York  and  elsewhere  —  some  full 
collection  of  books  to  satisfy  the  intellectual  and  technical 
demands  of  the  theatrical  profession.  All  social  movements 
betoken  a  social  need,  and  in  the  present  extensive  library 
development,  no  one  has  bethought  himself  to  make  a  plea 
for  this  particular  branch  of  art  and  literature.  Yet  the 
need  is  there,  and  the  opportunity  is  still  awaiting  some  one 
to  make  the  idea  of  a  dramatic  library  a  fact. 

In  isolated  moments,  when  one  is  vainly  searching  for 
particular  books  on  costumes,  for  a  special  text  of  a  play 
such  as  "Dora,"  for  some  biographical  material  concerning 
a  bygone  "  star,"  —  when  one  is  looking  for  such  data,  then 
it  is  that,  as  a  vain  search  is  made  here,  there,  and  every 
where,  wasting  time  and  energy  the  while,  there  is  a  faint 
yearning  for  some  special  library  where  comfort,  accuracy, 
and  completeness  are  housed  beneath  one  roof. 

No  one  will  deny  that  in  the  theatrical  profession  there 
may  be  found  the  specialist's  pride;  and  the  specialist  in 
drama  realizes  more  and  more  the  necessity  for  preserving 
records,  for  so  systematizing  the  best  that  has  been  thought 
and  written  in  all  departments  of  the  theatre,  as  to  give 
the  worker  immediate  authority  in  whatever  investigation 
of  a  professional  character  he  has  occasion  to  undertake. 

Perhaps  the  ones  who  have  suffered  most  in  this  lack  of  a 


278  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

dramatic  library  have  been  those  continuously  engaged 
in  researches  connected  with  stage  history.  Undoubtedly, 
those  who  have  indirectly  missed  quite  as  much  have  been 
the  people  whose  attitude  towards  the  theatre  is  a  practical 
one,  —  the  producing  manager  and  his  staff,  usually  com 
prising  an  art  director,  a  stage  director,  and  assistants.  But 
the  ones  in  the  end  to  be  most  vitally  hurt  by  this  particular 
neglect  will  be  those  who  are  to  inherit  the  traditions  of 
theatrical  history,  traditions  which  are  the  common  heritage 
of  the  nation  in  which  they  are  practiced  or  formed,  even 
though  they  might  not,  in  their  general  character,  pertain  to 
distinct  nationality. 

In  a  narrow,  local  sense,  there  are  two  evident  reasons 
why,  at  present,  the  time  is  opportune  for  urgent  cooperation 
in  this  matter  of  a  dramatic  library  —  a  cooperation  among 
those  most  interested  in  and  most  intimately  responsible 
for  the  drama's  welfare. 

First,  we  must  realize  that,  even  though  our  own  history 
of  the  stage  is  scarcely  more  than  a  century  old,  our  touch 
with  the  past  is  becoming  slighter,  since  the  veteran  actors  — 
the  generations  that  knew  Booth  and  Forrest  and  Wallack 
and  Davenport  —  are  passing  away  month  by  month. 
Second,  it  is  most  encouraging  to  note  that,  with  the  general 
interest  being  manifested  by  the  public  in  the  stage,  as  a 
world  of  glitter  and  romance,  there  is  taking  place  a  cor 
responding  increase  in  the  knowledge  of  those  who  go  to 
the  theatre,  and  who  concern  themselves  with  the  growth 
and  history  of  the  drama  itself. 

Behind  every  urgent  need  there  are  to  be  found  the  social 
reasons  for  that  need  —  the  facts,  for  instance,  that  have 
made  some  of  us  aware  of  the  necessity  for  a  definite  library, 
dealing  adequately  with  the  drama,  whatever  its  phase. 
There  are  tremendous  gaps  in  the  chain  of  dramatic  history 
to  be  supplied  with  connecting  links  —  and  every  death, 


THE  NEED  FOR  A  DRAMATIC  LIBRARY    279 

every  auction  sale,  every  isolated  bequeathment,  makes  it 
more  difficult  finally  for  the  connection  to  be  consummated, 
once  the  proper  endowment  is  secured  for  the  cause. 

In  libraries  of  a  general  character,  there  may  be  many 
books  concerning  the  drama,  but  they  are  of  miscellaneous 
importance,  and  are  usually  selected  to  satisfy  the  demands 
of  the  general  reader.  It  is  not  indifference  which  causes 
this  condition,  but  the  peculiar  function  of  the  special  circu 
lating  library  which  governs  the  selection.  Even  a  uni 
versity  library  cannot  discriminate  in  its  courses,  as  they 
relate  to  the  supply  of  reference  books,  and  no  one  should 
grant  that  it  has  the  right  to  do  so.  Therefore,  the  uni 
versity  does  not  attempt  to  keep  pace  with  any  other  than 
an  academic  interest  in  the  literature  of  the  drama.  Much 
of  this  current  material  appears  too  trivial,  indeed,  is  in 
tended  as  nothing  more  than  passing  comment,  and  therefore 
is  not  worthy  of  preservation. 

Still,  this  general  attention  is  not  what  we  are  at  present 
concerned  with.  We  are  seeking  to  found  some  centre,  to 
suggest  some  means  of  appropriation,  whereby  a  dramatic 
library,  individualized  and  functionating  alone  and  apart 
from  any  general  Public  Library,  yet  open  to  the  public, 
may  be  placed  in  a  position  to  become  the  treasure-house  for 
all  written  or  printed  matters  pertaining  to  the  theatre  in 
its  many  and  varied  aspects. 

Such  an  institution  must  not  be  of  trivial  or  of  uncertain 
foundation;  there  must  be  a  strong  promise  of  perpetuity 
in  it  before  donors  will  entrust  their  rarities  to  its  keeping. 
The  late  Bronson  Howard  had  this  thought  in  mind  when, 
after  bequeathing  his  working  library  to  the  Dramatists 
Club,  of  which  he  was  the  founder,  he  added  the  proviso  that 
should  the  Club,  through  any  unforeseen  circumstances, 
cease  to  exist,  the  collection  —  always  to  be  individualized 
as  "The  Bronson  Howard  Collection  for  American  Dram- 


280  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

atists "  —  should  be  transferred  to  the  Library  of  Columbia 
University,  which  should  likewise  be  entitled  to  the  interest 
on  five  thousand  dollars  for  its  further  increase.  Thus  was 
it  that  Bronson  Howard,  in  another  way,  added  to  his 
deserved  title  of  "Dean  of  the  American  Drama." 

Now,  there  is  only  one  unfortunate  circumstance  attached 
to  this  gift;  the  club  enriched  thereby  is  a  private  organi 
zation,  and  while,  through  special  privilege,  it  might  be  con 
sulted,  there  is  certain  restraint  upon  its  wide  usage  by 
the  public.  In  the  same  manner,  The  Players  is  loath  to 
make  its  collection  accessible  in  a  general  way,  and  only 
by  card  from  a  member  may  one  enjoy  the  privilege  of  a 
library  of  books  marked  more  by  their  associative  value 
than  by  the  wise  standard  of  their  choice. 

Rare  books  concerning  the  theatre  are  being  indiscrim 
inately  sold.  To  the  research  worker  it  seems  penny  wise 
and  pound  foolish  to  wait  for  the  day  when  some  one  might 
endow  a  dramatic  library.  Every  collection  gathered  by 
a  fastidious  manager  or  by  an  intelligent  actor,  which  is 
placed  under  the  auctioneer's  hammer,  loosens  our  hold  upon 
volumes  of  intrinsic  value.  I  speak  from  actual  experience; 
I  have  seen  the  gaps,  and  sensed  the  consequent  necessities. 
And  there  is  no  reason  why  the  dramatic  profession  itself 
should  not  establish  such  a  foundation  fund,  and  through 
its  own  initiative  see  the  venture  become  a  permanent  fact. 

Collections  must  be  preserved  intact,  and  not  share  the 
fate  of  Augustin  Daly's  books  that  were  scattered  to  isolated 
bibliophiles  and  idle  curio  hunters.  By  rights,  such  a  library 
should  have  been  saved  and  perpetuated  under  the  original 
owner's  name.  It  was  out  of  the  question  for  the  Ne,w 
York  Public  Library  to  become  the  purchaser,  for  appropri 
ations  would  not  have  allowed  such  "extravagance."  Any 
way,  however  adequate  the  New  York  Public  Library,  the 
Astor,  Lenox,  and  Tilden  collections  combined,  may  be  in 


THE  NEED  FOR  A  DRAMATIC  LIBRARY    281 

drama,  I  do  not  care  to  see  a  dramatic  library  lost  amidst 
other  collections,  and  shut  off  directly  from  the  stream  of 
life  which  should  give  it  greatest  energy. 

New  York's  Public  Library,  even  in  its  present  state  of 
dramatic  incompleteness,  does  not  quite  realize  the  riches  it 
already  has,  such  richness  as  the  Beck  collection  of  plays,  nor  is 
there  an  expert  —  and  by  that  I  do  not  mean  a  book  gatherer 
merely,  but  a  man  who  knows  something  specifically  about 
drama  —  who  is  able  to  meet  you  with  a  specialist's  knowl 
edge,  other  than  that  which  he  hastily  gathers  from  a  rather 
inadequate  card  in  the  catalogue  drawer. 

In  fact,  as  soon  as  a  dramatic  library  is  assured,  I  should 
like  every  social  institution  around  it,  which  has  either 
designedly  or  accidentally  become  possessor  of  rare  books  on 
the  theatre  in  its  every  phase,  to  hand  these  books  over  to 
the  special  library.  I  would  rob  Peter  to  pay  Paul  in  this 
respect,  provided  both  were  assured  children  of  the  public. 
This  specializing  under  such  generous  conditions  is  the  next 
step  in  the  development  of  American  libraries.  But,  as  far 
as  drama  is  concerned,  we  are  somewhat  late.  In  the  future, 
when  our  increasing  interest  in  the  playhouse  has  turned 
us  into  a  nation  of  theatre-goers,  proud  of  the  institution, 
how  many  will  wonder  what  has  become  of  the  libraries  of 
Daly,  Palmer,  John  Brougham,  William  E.  Burton,  and 
countless  others? 

As  an  instance  of  the  fate  of  theatrical  books:  In  the 
Daly  collection  was  MorrelPs  "Life  of  George  Holland." 
From  a  slim  volume  the  manager  had,  with  his  numerous 
additional  pictures,  letters,  notices,  and  manuscript  notes, 
made  two  thick  books.  Joseph  Holland,  son  of  the 
comedian,  was  on  the  road  at  the  time  of  the  sale,  and  wired 
his  order  to  New  York.  But  he  was  too  late,  and  assiduous 
inquiry  failed  to  reveal  into  whose  hands  this  personal  treasure 
actually  passed,  Had  there  been  a  dramatic  library,  such 


282  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

an  historical  record  would  have  been  preserved  from  the 
obscurity  which  now  envelops  it. 

At  one  time  I  had  occasion  to  gather  certain  facts  con 
cerning  Dion  Boucicault;  his  son  very  graciously  assisted 
me  from  the  mass  of  original  material  he  possesses.  It  was 
well-nigh  impossible,  notwithstanding,  for  our  combined 
efforts  to  frame  a  concise,  accurate  bibliography  of  Bouci- 
cault's  plays.  This  was  partly  due  to  the  Irish  writer's 
prolific  pen  and  to  his  genius  for  constructing  dramas  that 
often  never  saw  the  form  of  whole  manuscripts.  It  was 
equally  as  much  due  to  the  fact  that  neither  of  us  knew 
exactly  where  to  turn  for  further  investigation.  A  library, 
properly  endowed,  and  under  wise  guidance,  would  have 
facilitated  such  investigation. 

Another  need  —  and  this  a  vital  one.  As  an  investigator, 
where  am  I  to  turn  to  find  the  farces  of  Charles  Hoyt  in 
accessible  form,  or  to  study  the  plays  of  James  A.  Herne, 
Steele  Mackaye,  Henry  De  Mille,  and  others?  Some  of 
these  authors  are  at  times  represented  in  that  undoubtedly 
serviceable,  though  ghastly  and  inaccurate,  edition  pub 
lished  by  French,  but  often  they  are  not  the  best  of  the 
dramas,  which  later  are  destined  to  remain  in  manuscript. 

With  few  exceptions,  whenever  I  have  applied  directly  to 
the  families  possessing  the  "  originals/5  I  have  met  with  un 
failing  courtesy,  and  with  generous  interest.  But  what  of 
the  future?  There  should  be  a  dramatic  repository  for 
original  manuscripts,  made  accessible  to  the  student  of 
drama.  This  lack  was  a  possible  reason  for  Professor  Wen 
dell's  ignoring  of  the  American  drama  in  his  "Literary 
History  of  America."  Otherwise,  we  see  no  excuse  for  his 
neglect  of  Howard  and  Herne  and  Fitch.  If  the  Dramatists 
Club  does  not  see  fit  to  make  it  a  requirement  that  a  play, 
properly  protected,  be  printed,  even  as  a  university  requires 
a  thesis  to  be  in  book  form,  before  granting  a  degree;  if 


Photo,   by  Morrison 


CHARLES  HOYT 


THE  NEED  FOR  A  DRAMATIC  LIBRARY    283 

an  organization  such  as  the  Dunlap  Society  had  to  die  for 
lack  of  proper  support,  —  then  a  typewritten  copy  of  the 
manuscript  should  be  deposited  in  a  recognized  place  which 
guarantees  its  protection  and  assures  its  perpetuation  in 
literary  form.  There  is  danger  of  losing  our  best  specimen 
otherwise.  I  had  but  just  returned  the  manuscripts  of 
James  A.  Herne's  "Griffith  Davenport"  and  "Margaret 
Fleming,"  when  Mrs.  Herne's  country  home  was  destroyed 
by  fire,  and  these  only  copies  of  the  best  examples  of  the 
dramatist's  art  were  irrevocably  destroyed.  Had  a  definite 
literary  museum  for  the  drama  been  established,  there  would 
have  been  some  incentive  for  the  Herne  family  to  have 
established  a  Herne  collection  for  the  enrichment  of  the 
theatre.  Were  this  policy  adopted,  it  would  give  keen 
pleasure  to  see  the  name  of  Clyde  Fitch  attached,  in  such  a 
dignified  manner,  to  the  literature  of  dramatic  tradition. 
In  fact,  nothing  more  appropriate  could  be  than  that  a  Fitch 
Memorial  Collection  should  be  made  available,  for  instance, 
in  New  York,  a  city  which  he  so  well  represented  in  his  plays. 

There  is  something  stingingly  true  in  Burke's  utterance, 
put  in  the  mouth  of  his  Rip  Van  Winkle:  "  Are  we  so  soon 
forgot  when  we  are  gone?"  Players  are  human  and  die, 
while  their  sons  come  into  their  heritage,  possessing  all  the 
tangible  evidences  of  a  recorded  tradition  in  the  form  of 
manuscripts,  letters,  and  printed  data.  It  is  not  to  be  ex 
pected  that  they  will  lend  to  everyone  what  records  they 
possess,  yet  it  is  not  too  wild  a  speculation  to  believe  that 
they  would  willingly  donate  to  a  dramatic  library  what 
ever  books,  papers,  or  personalia  they  owned  which  might 
hold  some  public  interest  and  some  future  value. 

Of  what  should  a  dramatic  library  consist?  It  is  not  so 
simple,  as  at  first  might  seem,  to  limit  the  field,  for,  more 
than  any  other  art,  the  drama  embraces  so  much  that  is 
mere  accessory,  and  calls  upon  all  other  arts  for  aid.  But, 


284  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

beginning  with  a  general  division,  there  are  three  essen 
tial  classifications:  Historical,  Theoretical,  and  Practical. 
Neither  of  these,  as  an  actual  fact,  is  distinct,  but  the  three 
overlap,  as  all  things  do  in  nature.  In  the  first  of  these 
divisions  there  should  be  placed  (1)  the  lives  of  the  players, 
and  of  all  those  connected  with  the  stage  in  any  way;  (2) 
the  stage  history  of  plays;  (3)  the  record  of  performances 
and  the  preservation  of  programs;  (4)  collections  of  pic 
tures  and  plans,  together  with  (5)  the  histories  of  theatres 
as  homes  for  the  acted  drama.  There  would  likewise  be 
made  available  (6)  complete  bibliographies  of  all  topics 
likely  to  be  of  immediate  service  to  specialists. 

In  the  second  should  be  gathered  books  of  a  critical  cast, 
treating  (1)  of  the  drama  and  its  evolution,  (2)  of  the  plays 
in  their  construction,  (3)  of  the  dramatists  and  critics  in 
relation  to  their  theories  and  practice,  (4)  of  characters  and 
their  various  interpretations,  in  such  style  as  is  suggested 
in  the  Variorum  Shakespeare,  and  finally  (5)  of  the  drama 
and  its  place  in  society. 

In  the  third  division  should  be  gathered  (1)  every  detail 
which  bears  upon  the  theatre  as  a  working  proposition; 
one  should  be  able  to  obtain  suggestions  and  historical 
guidance  (2)  for  all  designs  of  costume,  and  (3)  for  particular 
furniture  or  architecture  peculiar  to  any  special  period. 
There  should  also  be  every  facility  (4)  for  tracing  the  entire 
evolution  of  the  mechanism  of  the  stage,  such  as  the  prog 
ress  of  lighting,  which  makes  for  the  practical  working  of 
illusion  before  the  "foots,"  or  without  the  "foots,"  as 
Belasco  and  Gordon  Craig  desire. 

The  Avery  Gallery,  attached  to  the  library  of  Columbia 
University,  at  present  is  the  only  satisfactorily  equipped 
architectural  collection  for  the  technical  study  of  the  theatre. 
The  books  are  widely  consulted,  much  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  authorities  in  charge,  who  are  simply  waiting  an  op- 


THE  NEED  FOR  A  DRAMATIC  LIBRARY    285 

portunity  to  cooperate  with  the  dramatic  library,  once  it 
is  securely  established  in  New  York.  Of  course,  managers 
have  their  individual  books,  but  many  works  are  difficult 
to  procure,  and  others  are  needed  only  for  momentary 
consultation. 

It  might  take  years  to  establish  such  an  institution  as 
we  imagine,  but  now  is  none  too  soon  to  begin.  One  of  the 
cherished  hopes  of  the  defunct  National  Art  Theatre  Society 
was  to  found  a  library  of  wide  scope  such  as  that  later  at 
tempted  by  the  Green  Room  Club  of  New  York  City,  in 
it  to  have  at  hand  one  of  the  largest  collections  of  dramatic 
books  ever  brought  together,  which  would  treat  of  the  theatre 
and  of  the  drama  in  every  particular. 

Where  in  New  York  City  shall  the  student  turn  to  be 
thus  supplied?  Wherever  it  behooves  him  to  wander,  he 
is  only  partly  satisfied.  If  the  Public  Library  has  one  thing, 
it  has  not  the  other,  nor  is  there  a  systematic  effort  to  keep 
up  to  date.  Even  at  the  present  time,  to  repeat,  the  Public 
Library  has  no  one  in  authority  who  is  definitely  assigned 
to  a  department  of  the  drama.  If  asked  why  they  fail  in 
this  respect,  they  will  tell  you  that  they  are  not  required  to 
specialize  in  everything.  This  may  be  a  fair  reason,  but 
it  does  not  explain  their  willingness  to  subdivide  in  classifi 
cation,  to  the  smallest  fraction,  any  scientific  literature  of 
practical  and  public  bearing. 

No  library  at  present  contains  such  an  equipment  as  we 
have  in  mind.  On  private  walls  and  in  personal  albums  I 
have  come  across  playbills,  brown  and  seared  with  age, 
recording  a  few  first  productions,  but  these  walls  and  albums 
are  scattered  and  private.  Books  on  the  drama  very  rapidly 
pass  out  of  print:  Tyrone  Power's  "Reminiscences  of  the 
30's,"  Hackett's  volume  about  "Falstaff,"  Sothern's  "Birds 
of  a  Feather,"  the  theatrical  experiences  of  such  men  as 
Smith,  who  knew  his  early  South;  of  Ludlow,  who  caught 


286  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

the  spirit  of  the  early  West.  Even  Dunlap,  Ireland,  Clapp, 
and  so  recent  an  historian  as  Allston  Brown  are  scarce  in  their 
editions.  This  is  how  the  matter  stands  in  America. 

There  is  the  academic  side  to  every  library;  there  is  like 
wise  the  practical.  Unfortunately,  as  regards  the  theatre, 
there  are  too  many  who  are  used  to  reading  about  it  in  a 
trivial  fashion  when,  both  as  an  institution  and  as  a  pro 
fession,  it  has  the  rights,  the  possibilities,  of  the  highest  art. 
Many  attempts  have  been  made  by  the  disappointed  play 
wright  to  establish  a  National  Theatre;  it  has  been  found  not 
such  an  easy  task  as  was  at  first  expected.  And  so  is  the 
problem  going  to  be  with  a  dramatic  library,  for  first  of  all  it 
must  be  remembered  that  a  dramatic  library  is  all-inclu 
sive  on  the  subject,  at  the  same  time  that  it  is  a  library,  that 
it  is  many-sided  in  its  purpose,  however  distinctive  its  name; 
that  it  has  its  student  side  —  its  evolutionary  and  revolu 
tionary  phases  —  as  well  as  its  practical  side. 

The  cry  has  been  heard  for  many  days  that  the  university 
is  too  theoretical  in  its  study  of  the  stage,  having  neglected 
the  fact  that  Moliere,  Shakespeare,  and  those  of  like  mag 
nitude,  were  primarily  practical  playwrights.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  their  turn,  the  university  theatre-goers  have  ap 
pealed  to  public  taste,  have  accused  those  in  charge  of 
the  drama's  welfare  of  being  absorbed  in  the  practical  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  artistic.  If  it  is  not  already  too  evident 
to  the  reader,  a  dramatic  library  must  be  so  equipped  as 
to  balance  the  theoretical  and  the  practical.  Even  though 
privately  organized,  it  should  be  public;  or  the  theatre  is 
public,  the  actor  in  his  professional  capacity  is  public,  and 
the  drama  in  every  detail  has  been  born  of  the  public. 

When  some  years  ago  there  was  so  much  talk  about  a 
National  Theatre,  many  were  surprised  to  find  themselves 
at  sea  about  the  word  national.  In  no  other  phase  of  creative 
art  is  the  inclusive  meaning  of  the  term  so  evident  as  in  the 


THE  NEED  FOR  A  DRAMATIC    LIBRARY   287 

drama.  More  than  any  other  form  of  human  expression, 
drama  is  comparative,  for  in  all  countries  it  has  many  ele 
ments  in  common;  being  active,  it  is  imitative.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  an  American  dramatic  library;  and  we 
are  fast  coming  to  recognize  that  the  American  drama  itself 
is  but  a  branch  of  English  drama  —  distinctive,  simply 
because  of  local  atmosphere  and  national  traits  —  since 
human  passions  are  the  same  the  world  over.  Hence,  in  a  dra 
matic  library,  we  must  consider  the  drama  as  an  organic 
whole,  and  that  means  that  the  Frenchman,  the  German, 
the  Norwegian,  the  Spaniard,  and  the  Italian  must  be  satis 
fied,  as  well  as  ourselves. 

The  first  question  for  us  to  ask  is  not:  Where  are  the  books? 
Those  will  be  forthcoming,  by  subscription  and  by  donation, 
just  so  soon  as  the  more  important  questions  of  endowment 
and  organization  are  decided.  There  must  be  no  cliques, 
as  is  so  often  the  case  in  innovations  connected  with  the 
drama;  there  must  be  no  petty  jealousies.  It  must  be  a 
public  dramatic  library,  for  actors,  managers,  and  indi 
viduals  would  more  willingly  contribute  to  such  an  institu 
tion,  founded  upon  a  broad  basis,  than  give  to  a  single  actor, 
manager,  or  individual,  as  the  heart  and  soul  of  a  casual 
library  movement,  lasting  perhaps  a  generation. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  DISINTEGRATION  AND   REGENERATION  OF 
THE   THEATRE 


THE  theatre  in  America  is  passing  through  its  newspaper 
phase;  in  every  department  it  is  being  influenced  by  those 
economic  forces  which  try  to  inflate  the  market  without 
improving  the  product,  and  which  measure  the  product  as 
a  commodity  rather  than  as  an  art.  Every  industry  is 
subject  to  the  laws  of  profit  and  loss,  and  the  theatre  is  an 
ever-increasing  industry,  since  the  amusement  territory  is 
increasing.  There  is  no  concentration  which  would  make 
New  York  the  theatrical  centre  in  the  way  that  London  is 
the  hub  of  the  United  Kingdom. 

Only  by  the  combining  of  theatrical  interests  in  the  hands 
of  a  few  dictators  has  the  theatre  settled  into  some  orderly 
adjustment,  exchanging  independence  of  selection  on  the 
part  of  the  small  manager  and  of  the  actor,  for  certain 
salaried  assurance.  The  theatrical  interests  have  largely 
been  held  in  New  York,  although  Chicago  is  increasing  in 
importance,  while  the  road  has  accepted  what  it  could  get, 
the  local  manager  being  only  a  dependent,  wTith  no  incentive 
or  means  to  give  his  public  what  they  want  other  than  what 
the  Syndicate  might  allow  them. 

The  history  of  the  Theatrical  Trust  is  hardly  different  from 
the  growth  of  any  other  trust,  save  in  respect  to  the  person 
alities  of  the  men  behind  the  combination.  The  magnates 


DISINTEGRATION   AND   REGENERATION    289 

who  govern  Wall  Street  know  their  trade  down  to  the  smallest 
detail;  they  know  the  men  with  whom  they  have  to  deal, 
and  they  are  quick  to  measure  the  risk.  The  same  may  be 
said  for  the  theatrical  manager.  But  the  extraordinary 
business  man  exceeds  the  exceptional  theatre  man  in  this 
large  respect:  he  understands  the  way  the  country  is  going; 
he  has  his  hand  on  the  pulse  of  business  conditions  at  their 
greatest  energy;  he  knows  how  the  people  are  thinking 
on  public  affairs.  The  theatre-manager  has  no  such  pene 
tration;  he  launches  his  individual  enterprises  as  a  gamble, 
and  depends  upon  the  physical  resources  of  theatricalism 
to  "boost"  his  product. 

The  history  of  the  men  who  constitute  the  Trust  is  the  same 
in  each  case.  Their  one  claim  to  serious  consideration, 
outside  of  the  sphere  of  menace  to  an  art,  is  the  fact  that, 
having  seen  an  opportunity  to  place  art  upon  a  sound  com 
mercial  basis,  they  combined  with  sufficient  foresight  to 
corner  the  theatrical  market.  What  they  were  not  able  to 
observe  was  that,  however  sound  the  commercial  basis,  art  was 
still  art,  and  that,  while  les  affaires  sont  les  affaires,  human 
nature  is  human  nature.  This  fact  alone  would  assuredly 
betray  them  in  the  end. 

We  have  heard  much  of  the  commercial  theatre,  but  if 
we  stop  to  think,  why  should  not  a  theatre  be  commercial? 
For  the  play  which  does  not  draw  is  not  acceptable  to  the 
people,  and  while  the  box-office  should  not  limit  the  art,  at 
least  the  art  should  not  hold  the  box-office  in  contempt, 
since  herein  is  worldly  measure  of  its  own  excellence.  The 
weak  spot  in  the  theatrical  situation  is  not  the  commercial 
theatre,  but  the  business  methods  of  those  behind  it;  and 
the  business  methods  proclaim  the  man. 

Judged  by  all  business,  large  enterprises  must  be  organ 
ized,  and  organization  is  either  scrupulous  or  not  scrupulous. 
The  men  behind  the  Trust  were  in  it  for  profits,  and  having 


290  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

launched  enterprises,  they  had  to  make  these  enterprises 
sell.  To  do  this,  they  found  it  necessary  to  control  the 
amusement  arteries  of  the  country.  Thus,  audiences  either 
had  to  take  the  food  they  found  or  else  go  without.  This 
blockading  system  was  reached  through  a  booking  agency, 
whereby  time  assignments  were  distributed  for  attractions 
at  the  pleasure  of  the  dictators  and  on  the  payment  of  certain 
fees.  Once  under  operation,  this  group  of  men,  known  as 
the  Theatre  Trust,  or  Theatrical  Syndicate,  practically  became 
inquisitorial  in  its  policy,  tampering  even  with  the  independ 
ent  opinion  of  the  press. 

Now  was  the  time  to  prove  the  personality  of  the  men,  to 
measure  their  attitude  toward  art,  to  realize  their  unfitness 
to  the  full.  They  found  the  theatre  business  precarious,  and 
after  a  fashion  they  placed  the  finances  on  a  basis  of  equilib 
rium.  But  in  return,  the  drama  had  to  sacrifice  all  that 
conduced  to  the  maintenance  of  its  health  as  an  art  and  as 
a  civic  force.  These  men  were  "in"  for  the  money,  and  so 
skilful  was  their  generalship  that  they  told  the  North,  South, 
East,  and  West  what  they  must  have,  whether  they  would 
or  no.  Salaries  were  assured,  but  voices  were  silenced,  and 
there  was  no  say  in  the  theatrical  world  save  that  of  the 
Trust. 

Then  arose  an  opposition,  the  chief  significance  of  which 
was  that  it  did  oppose.  Cut  of  the  same  stuff,  yet  dissatis 
fied  with  its  stock,  this  new  combination  grew  because  the 
time  was  ripe,  and  because  there  was  enough  public  opinion 
in  the  air  to  father  its  growth.  Factions  kept  coming  its  way, 
from  the  South  and  from  the  West,  while  new  theatres  at 
significant  stations  in  the  theatrical  territory  began  to  fall 
away  from  the  control  of  the  octopus.  Yet,  despite  the 
disintegration  brought  about  by  "this  condition  of  affairs, 
we  have  yet  to  see  whether  or  not  we  have  on  our  hands 
more  than  one  octopus.  The  meaning  of  this  insurgency 


DISINTEGRATION  AND   REGENERATION    291 

in  the  theatre  was  nevertheless  health-giving,  or  at  least 
held  promises  of  renewed  hope.  For,  let  it  here  be  said  that, 
after  all,  a  manager's  business  is  dependent  upon  the  will  of 
the  people,  however  much  he  may  dictate  terms.  They  like 
what  they  like,  and  just  as  soon  as  they  discriminate  in 
their  liking,  the  manager's  standard  will  have  to  change. 
If  good  plays  draw,  the  theatres  will  want  good  plays. 
Whether  those  at  the  head  have  sufficient  judgment  to  know 
a  good  thing  when  they  see  it,  is  a  matter  of  doubt.  But 
the  commercial  theatre  has  a  perfect  right  to  vend  mediocre 
musical  comedies,  if  the  people  persist  in  wanting  them. 

As  far  as  the  Trust  is  concerned,  all  this  time,  art,  the 
supreme  cause  of  the  theatre,  the  life  expression  of  the 
people,  was  languishing  beneath  an  ignorance  of  its  nature. 
Plays  were  manufactured  for  particular  "stars,"  and  these 
actors,  instead  of  the  drama,  were  featured  as  the  drawing 
attractions.  The  dramatized  novel  and  musical  comedy 
monopolized  the  boards.  Those  who  were  not  in  the  game, 
and  those  who  refused  subjection,  suffered  on  the  road.  Mr. 
Belasco,  booking  through  the  Trust,  was  denied  time  at  St. 
Louis  for  "The  Darling  of  the  Gods"  during  the  Exposition, 
while  the  opposition  rushed  its  own  "  The  Japanese  Nightin 
gale"  into  the  breach.  Mrs.  Fiske,  unwilling  to  come  to 
terms,  had  to  act  in  music  halls  and  second-rate  houses, 
while  Mme.  Bernhardt  carried  with  her  a  stage  and  a  circus 
tent.  In  the  Southern  circuit,  the  small  manager  was  prac 
tically  nothing  more  than  a  janitor,  who  received  no  con 
cessions  and  who  could  adopt  no  house  policy.  The 
situation  was  chaotic.  Actors  like  Richard  Mansfield  and 
Francis  Wilson,  who  had  been  among  the  first  to  oppose 
strenuously  the  dictatorial  policy,  had,  one  by  one,  to  come 
to  terms. 

Through  publicity,  ground  was  prepared  for  the  oppo 
sition.  The  "open  door  "  cry  was  an  excellent  slogan,  and  one 


292  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

in  accord  with  popular  sentiment.  An  independent  policy 
was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  right  for  any  manager, 
irrespective  of  whether  or  not  he  was  a  member  of  a  trust, 
to  "book"  his  attraction  in  any  town  possessing  an  inde 
pendent  theatre.  This  free  trade  even  admitted  of  the  op 
position  party  asking  for  "time"  in  its  rival's  houses.  For 
a  while,  this  will  have  the  appearance  of  healthy  compe 
tition,  but  as  events  are  transpiring,  there  is  every  reason 
to  believe  that  the  two  will  coalesce,  and  become  more 
powerful  than  ever. 

Meanwhile,  nevertheless,  the  theatre  has  been  affected 
by  changing  conditions,  mental  and  economic.  The  drama, 
as  a  subject  of  popular  consideration,  is  being  more  sanely 
discussed,  and  the  type  of  play,  closely  in  touch  with  the 
newspaper,  reflects  a  different  order  of  interests.  Public 
agitation  against  old  methods  of  management  has  made 
opportune  another  slogan  about  an  endowed  theatre,  a 
civic  playhouse,  a  memorial  auditorium,  wherein  might  be 
perpetuated  the  real  classics  of  dramatic  art  —  away  from 
the  blighting  touch  of  commercialism.  But  even  here,  the 
popular  conception  is  wrong.  Endowment  on  any  basis 
whatsoever  does  not  permit  the  manager  to  disregard 
popular  demand;  it  only  allows  a  certain  margin  of  risk 
and  does  not  require  an  immediate  return  on  the  investment. 
It  does  not  say,  "Lose";  but  it  assures  the  manager  sup 
port  where  there  has  been  failure  in  a  judicious  cause. 

The  one  danger  of  independence,  in  the  commercial  sense, 
lies  in  the  sudden  appearance  of  numberless  mushroom 
managers.  Though  we  do  not  see  it  plainly  at  present,  the 
actor  will  eventually  find  that  salaries  will  decrease,  and 
demands  on  his  part  will  fail  to  possess  their  former  value. 
There  will  come  a  general  slump  in  the  market  of  stipend, 
and  while  this  may  aid  in  the  establishment  of  stock  com 
panies,  it  will  not  guarantee,  as  the  Trust  did,  that  a  company 


DISINTEGRATION  AND  REGENERATION    293 

in  its  circuit  through  the  country  will  not  be  left  high  and 
dry  somewhere  in  the  deserts  of  Arizona. 

In  other  words,  the  disintegration  of  the  theatre,  in  spite 
of  the  efficacy  of  free  trade,  will  be  attendant  with  dangers. 
It  might  degenerate  into  every  playwright  being  his  own 
manager,  just  as  there  is  an  economic  possibility  of  every 
author  having  to  pay  for  the  publication  of  his  own  book. 
Charles  Klein  has  affiliated  himself  in  a  business  way  with 
the  Author's  Producing  Company;  he  prefers  to  have  this 
organization  present  Charles  Klein's  play  than  to  have 
announced  on  the  billboards  Henry  B.  Harris's  new  play 
by  Charles* Klein  (in  small  type).  The  "open  door"  affords 
an  ample  opportunity  for  the  new  playwright  to  procure  a 
hearing;  it  widens  the  market,  and  increases  the  possibility 
of  a  production.  But  it  lacks  concentrated  energy;  it  is 
wanting  in  the  assurances  of  stability. 

Nor  has  the  "open  door"  policy  prevented  Charles  Froh- 
man  from  cornering  the  market  in  English  playwrights,  as 
certain  publishers  have  cornered  certain  authors  and  illus 
trators  for  their  exclusive  use.  It  is  all  in  the  game  of  busi 
ness  competition.  Mr.  Frohman,  strange  to  say,  now  finds 
himself  in  a  peculiar  position;  he  has  the  plays  and  he  has 
not  sufficient  theatres  in  which  to  present  them.  The 
Shuberts,  by  an  almost  phenomenal  ability  to  procure  realty 
support,  and  by  their  persistent  policy  of  fighting  through 
the  medium  of  a  newspaper  which  they  founded  for  this 
express  purpose,  have  weakened  the  territorial  influence 
of  the  old  Theatrical  Trust.  In  return,  they  have  not  suc 
ceeded  in  inspiring  confidence  as  to  their  own  intentions. 

This  disintegration  of  the  theatre,  therefore,  points  to 
a  step  which  is  very  evident  to  those  most  desirous  of  honest 
intent.  The  Syndicate  faction  assuredly  placed  the  theatre 
on  a  business  basis,  as  I  have  indicated;  but  they  tampered 
with  the  vital  organ  of  the  corporation,  and  became  dicta- 


294  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

torial  in  their  booking  of  time,  demanding  excessive  terms 
wherever  they  wished  commercially  to  make  a  production 
impracticable  in  a  neighborhood  they  themselves  desired. 
There  is  now  an  essential  need  for  a  dramatic  clearing-house 
which  will  ensure  for  the  theatre  business  the  same  confi 
dence  and  the  same  stability  which  the  New  York  Clearing- 
House  does  for  the  banks.  A  man's  business  is  his  own, 
but  when  he  undertakes  to  serve  as  middleman  for  another, 
then  he  subjects  himself  to  ethical  responsibility. 

Another  thing  is  to  be  said  for  the  Theatrical  Trust,  how 
ever  wrong  it  may  have  been  in  its  business  methods :  there 
was  an  efficiency  about  its  work  that  was  due  entirely  to  the 
experience  of  its  theatre  officials.  The  principle  of  its  book 
ing  system  is  excellent;  its  advance  agents  are  keen  and  alive. 
Nor  can  there  be  much  fault  found  with  its  railroad  ar 
rangements.  Only  when  the  theatre  began  to  disintegrate 
did  one  detect  a  laxity  in  management,  due  very  largely 
to  the  haste  with  which  productions  were  thrown  upon  the 
road,  and  to  the  calibre  of  the  man  sent  ahead  of  the  "  show." 
However  ignorant  the  officials  governing  theatrical  affairs, 
they  were  sufficiently  wise  to  bring  to  their  aid  cleverness 
from  the  outside.  They  took  newspaper  men  as  their  press- 
agents  and  paid  them  large  salaries  to  pursue  a  course  that 
has  well-nigh  been  the  undoing  of  dramatic  criticism  in  this 
country. 

For  the  one  corrective  of  the  theatre  is  the  publicity  which 
is  given  to  it  in  our  papers.  The  theatre-manager  assures 
his  press  representative  an  authoritative  position,  from 
which  vantage  ground  he  seeks  to  establish  a  chain  of  papers, 
willing  to  print  any  news  emanating  from  the  theatre  office. 
This '* eagerness  to  accept  "copy"  given  freely,  has  been 
largely  responsible  for  the  attitude  assumed  by  the  manager 
in  his  demand  that  dramatic  criticism  in  no  way  be  allowed 
to  conflict  with  the  positive  effect  of  his  advertising. 


DISINTEGRATION  AND   REGENERATION    295 

This  struggle  is  wrong,  but  it  may  be  easily  attributable 
to  the  unofficial  character  of  the  theatre  critic's  work.  The 
papers  are  not  careful  in  their  appointment  of  well-trained 
men  for  the  position.  And  we  need  such  men  in  this  period 
of  disintegration.  It  is  usually  argued,  and  rightly,  that  the 
attractions  of  the  "  pass "  are  too  great  to  confine  the  privi 
lege  to  one  person;  the  advantages  of  advertising  are  too 
evident  to  sacrifice  them  to  the  whim  of  one  person's  idea. 
The  press-agent's  position  is  more  sharply  defined  than  that 
of  the  dramatic  critic;  he  is  not  handicapped;  he  may  go 
the  limit,  and  he  does  so  cleverly. 

Another  aspect  that  has  aided  in  the  disintegration  of  the 
theatre  is  the  character  of  the  outside  forces  which  have 
detracted  from  the  resources  of  the  legitimate  theatre. 
First,  the  vaudeville  houses  have  organized  themselves  into 
a  Trust  as  potent  as  that  of  the  straight  houses;  second, 
the  moving-picture  interests  have  combined  so  thoroughly 
as  to  threaten  theatre  business  on  the  road;  and  finally, 
so  many  theatres  are  being  erected  in  the  large  cities,  notably 
in  New  York,  that  they  cannot  be  guaranteed  sufficient  sup 
port  by  the  assurance  of  adequate  demand  or  of  worthy 
supply.  In  other  words,  the  economics  of  the  theatre,  having 
passed  through  the  stage  of  experimentation  and  organi 
zation,  need  to  be  studied  with  wisdom  and  forethought. 

I  cannot  see  where  the  "  open  door  "  policy  is  productive  of 
large  and  wholesome  results,  per  se.  It  is,  of  course,  more 
honest  by  far  to  have  all  doors  open  than  to  work  in  the 
dark  and  with  a  cut-throat  policy  at  hand.  But  there  still 
remains  the  problem  of  personality,  of  manhood,  in  the 
theatrical  business.  The  situation  is  quite  similar  to  that 
of  politics:  a  better  class  of  men  must  be  drawn  into  the 
business,  even  as  they  must  be  drawn  into  the  civic  life  of 
the  people.  It  is  not  enough  that  we  have  an  organization; 
each  man  must  be  of  the  highest  quality.  It  is  not  enough 


296  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

that  plays  be  produced  in  order  to  fill  the  increasing  number 
of  theatres;  the  producer  must  be  instinct  with  art.  The 
Theatrical  Trust  gave  us  an  excellent  shell;  the  soul  has  yet 
to  be  supplied. 

The  disintegration  of  the  theatre  has  shown  us  the  im 
minent  dangers  of  theatrical  organization.  There  are  two 
phases  of  the  business:  the  ledger  side  and  the  art  side. 
These  should  be  separate  in  working  process,  and  the  former 
should  not  limit  the  latter,  even  though  art  should  have 
regard  for  the  box-office.  The  crying  need  of  the  theatre 
at  present  is  for  a  dramatic  clearing-house,  and  for  a  different 
quality  of  art  which  flourishes  upon  a  different  spirit  of 
organization.  The  outward  form  will  be  very  much  the 
same  as  it  is  now.  We  shall  see  that  the  theatre  is  disinte 
grating  in  order  that  it  may  be  more  closely  and  more  soundly 
organized  in  the  light  of  its  excellences  and  of  its  failings. 


II 

I  believe  that  the  theatre  has  much  to  contend  with  in  the 
increasing  disillusionment  of  its  audiences.  A  large  asset 
in  the  appreciation  of  a  play  consists  in  a  nai've  acceptance 
of  its  papier  mache  and  of  its  convention.  There  was  a  time 
when  this  was  very  real  to  all  of  us,  when  we  did  not  care 
whether  thunder  came  from  a  tin  sheet  or  the  patter  of  rain 
from  the  rattle  of  peas  in  a  pan.  The  press-agent  has  at  last 
waked  himself  up  to  his  great  sin  of  commission :  that  in  his 
publicity  work  he  has  opened  the  doors  of  wonder  too  wide, 
and  has  shown  the  miracle  in  shirt-sleeves.  In  the  regener 
ation  of  the  drama,  one  of  the  first  things  will  be  to  bring 
back  the  old-fashioned  curiosity  of  audiences. 

This  will  mean  that  the  keen  virtue  of  imagination  will 
have  to  be  cultivated.  When  we  criticise  the  paucity  of  the 
Elizabethan  stage  with  its  paper  signs,  or  of  the  mystery- 


DISINTEGRATION  AND  REGENERATION    297 

play  platform  with  its  bowl  of  water  for  the  sea,  we  discount 
the  responsiveness  of  an  audience,  whose  education  may 
not  have  been  as  general  as  ours,  but  whose  minds  were 
more  active  and  more  sensitive  to  mere  suggestion.  So 
rapidly  has  illusion  deserted  us,  and  so  surprisingly  have 
the  mechanical  excellences  of  the  theatre  increased  that,  in 
order  to  retain  the  shadow  of  "make-believe,"  audiences 
demand  settings  which  materially  decrease  the  manager's 
chances  for  large  profits. 

Such  expenditure  is  warranted  in  spectacular  pieces  like 
"Ben-Hur"  and  "The  Shepherd  King/'  where  the  plays 
themselves  had  attractive  appeal.  But  scenery  can  no 
longer  prop  a  weak  drama,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the 
people  are  at  last  beginning  to  know  something  of  the  art 
of  the  theatre.  To  a  certain  degree,  the  press-agent  has 
been  responsible  for  this.  Not  that  his  journalism  has  lost 
any  of  its  advertising  quality,  but  he  is  becoming  more 
judicious  in  his  statements,  and  more  sparing  of  his  credu 
lous  stories.  There  has  even  been  a  change,  within  recent 
years,  as  regards  the  wild  hero-worship  which  traveled  in 
the  wake  of  the  "star"  system  —  a  hero-worship  largely 
fed  by  the  bits  of  stage  gossip  furnished  from  the  press 
department  of  every  manager's  office. 

This  condition  is  improving.  Though  the  press-agent  is 
still  primarily  an  advertiser  for  his  "show,"  he  is  smart 
enough  to  understand  that  his  audience  is  manifesting  in 
terest  in  the  technique  of  the  theatre.  The  education  which 
is  thus  taking  place  is  somewhat  due  to  the  yearly  publica 
tion  of  popular  books  on  the  drama  by  men  who  have  knowl 
edge,  yet  are  gifted  with  an  unscholastic  style.  While  these 
volumes  expound  no  new  principles,  they  at  least  fa 
miliarize  the  public  with  those  fundamental  characteristics 
which  combine  to  make  an  excellent  play.  The  critiques 
thus  gathered  together  in  no  way  boast  of  the  literaiy 


298  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

distinction  of  the  work  of  Hazlitt,  Lamb,  or  Lewes;  but  in 
their  journalistic  stricture,  they  do  accustom  theatre-goers 
to  question  technique  in  drama  as  they  would  demand 
balance  in  art.  What  is  now  needed  in  our  criticism  is  a 
more  rigid  scrutiny  of  our  right  to  enjoy  certain  amusements, 
and  a  more  minute  examination  of  the  methods  of  the  actor 
as  a  creative  artist. 

In  other  words, — indirectly  through  the  better  class  press- 
agent;  directly  through  the  conscientious  critic;  and  partly 
through  the  publication  of  plays,  —  the  theatre  is  receiving 
an  intellectual  training  which  the  commercial  manager 
already  finds  himself  bound  to  recognize.  Audiences  are 
becoming  technicians,  despite  the  old  cry  of  the  tired  busi 
ness  man. 

The  unrest  which  marks  general  theatrical  interests,  and 
the  dearth  of  plays  which  strains  the  manager's  ingenuity, 
are  sufficient  indication  that  no  "open  door"  policy  will 
bring  immediate  relief,  even  though  it  give  the  unheard 
playwright  a  hearing  and  a  chance.  The  New  Theatre  in 
its  first  year  examined  two  thousand  manuscripts  for  prob 
ably  six  acceptances.  We  are  all  writing  plays,  but  they 
have  the  demerits  of  imitation,  and  lack  the  strength  of  the 
soil.  The  one  school  which  we  have  in  the  drama  is  in  the 
observation  of  American  conditions  —  especially  as  they 
apply  to  business  affairs.  Once  there  was  opportunity  to 
do  big  work  in  the  aspects  of  rural  life,  but  even  James  A. 
Herne  was  touched  by  a  fast  declining  melodrama  which 
soon  went  out  of  date,  even  as  the  sentiment  peculiar  to  it 
disappeared,  despite  its  splendid  odor  of  rosemary. 

In  the  regeneration  of  the  theatre,  therefore,  the  play 
wright  is  growing  to  recognize  that  his  own  citizenship 
means  something  in  the  conception  of  his  drama;  that  the 
one  original  opportunity  of  the  outward  drama,  apart  from 
the  spiritual  essence  of  it,  lies  in  the  locality  of  which  Howells, 


DISINTEGRATION  AND   REGENERATION    299 

Bret  Harte,  Octave  Thanet,  Page,  and  Cable  have  made  so 
much  in  literature.  The  scenic  idea  has  created  a  seeable 
American  drama,  but  hardly  a  readable  one  or  a  preservable 
one.  "  Salomy  Jane,"  "  The  Girl  of  the  Golden  West/'  "  In 
Old  Kentucky,"  "Way Down  East,"  "Sag  Harbor,"  and  such 
titles  occur  to  everyone;  in  fact,  it  is  not  too  rash  to  state 
that  the  theatre,  topographically,  has  very  well  considered 
the  local  differences  of  the  country.  But  as  yet  the  activity  of 
dramatic  authorship  has  also  become  too  diffuse  —  a  char 
acteristic  of  newspaper  training,  and  showing  a  want  of  set 
purpose  other  than  to  write  something  for  the  theatre  which 
affords  large  returns  upon  the  right  thing. 

Yet  the  widespread  interest,  as  I  see  it,  will  mean  that  a 
man  properly  accustomed  to  exact  technique,  and  well- 
trained  in  the  professional  and  in  the  cultural  phases  of  his 
trade,  will  at  last  experiment  in  drawing  from  the  soil  matter 
which  is  the  essence  of  national  life.  This  consciousness 
of  the  matter  at  hand  is  not  cultivated  by  artificial  means, 
but  comes  through  necessity  from  within,  through  big  con 
viction,  through  personal  belief,  through  consuming  interest 
in  this  condition  and  in  that  type.  It  is  not  a  mere  observa 
tional,  reportorial  drama,  such  as  we  have  in  "The  Lion 
and  the  Mouse,"  or  in  "The  Gamblers."  Not  one  of  our 
American  dramatists  can  thus  far  boast  of  challenging  public 
thought  or  of  rousing  public  interest,  other  than  that  of  fic 
titious  excitement. 

Our  theatre  needs  a  body  of  ideas;  it  needs  to  reflect  in 
better  ways  the  undercurrent  of  American  life.  It  lags  be 
hind  the  newspaper  instead  of  leaping  forward  and  making 
the  newspaper  keep  up  with  it  in  civic  pride  and  in  common 
honesty.  If  we  are  given  poetic  drama,  it  has  the  scholastic 
idea  that  "Marlowe"  and  "Sappho  and  Phaon"  are  better 
than  "Hiawatha"  and  an  epic  of  wheat,  of  hemp,  or 
of  the  New  England  conscience.  If  the  play  is  social,  it 


300  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

simply  dramatizes  the  newspapers,  busying  itself  about  the 
outward  movement  of  life.  The  playwright  knows  that  he  is 
sure  of  sympathy  from  audiences  whenever  he  places  the 
warmth  of  American  character  in  contrast  with  the  artificiality 
of  foreign  social  intrigue;  hence  the  popularity  of  Booth 
Tarkington's  "  The  Man  from  Home,"  and  "  The  Gentleman 
from  Indiana."  He  knows  that  a  certain  representation  of 
the  stress  and  strain  of  Wall  Street  will  rouse  curiosity;  hence 
"The  Pit."  But  he  is  too  prone  to  lose  sight  of  the  ethics 
of  business  in  the  noise  of  "buncoism;"  hence  "The  Gam 
blers"  and  "Get-rich-quick  Wallingford."  That  is  the  usual 
inclination  of  the  reporter  after  a  story. 

The  lure  of  large  profits  has  been  responsible  to  a  marked 
degree  for  the  general  weakness  of  our  native  drama.  Writers 
without  technique  in  this  special  field  have  identified  the 
narrative  conversation  of  fiction  with  the  vital  dialogue 
of  the  stage,  not  realizing  that  the  structure  in  each  is  dif 
ferent.  Yet  one  cannot  help  believing  that  the  interest  of  the 
literary  man  in  the  theatre  will  affect  the  intellectual  char 
acter  of  its  future. 

But  the  literary  man  is  not  a  frequent  theatre-goer; 
whenever  he  is  detected  in  numbers  in  the  auditorium,  it  is 
safe  to  reckon  that  he  has  been  brought  there  by  a  promise, 
not  of  drama  in  the  theatrical  sense,  but  of  ideas  in  the 
literary  sense.  If  he  likes  the  ideas,  but  finds  that  critically 
the  drama  fails  to  be  drama,  he  condemns  the  theatre  and 
hastens  outside  to  deplore  the  decadence  of  the  stage. 
Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  never  could  realize  why  "  Judith  of 
Bethulia"  did  not  prove  acceptable;  he  attributed  it  to  the 
uncultivation  of  the  theatre-going  public,  rather  than  to  his 
own  failure  to  meet  some  of  the  essential  requirements  of 
drama.  Percy  Mackaye,  understanding  the  theory  of  stage 
craft,  persists  in  clogging  his  dialogue  with  sentiments  and 
allusions  wholly  unsuited  to  quick-moving  minds. 


DISINTEGRATION  AND   REGENERATION    301 

Since  this  is  the  literary  condition  of  the  drama,  it  is  safe 
to  count  the  literary  clientele  as  a  body  in  itself  dedicated 
to  the  improvement  of  the  theatre  according  to  wrong 
methods.  In  fact,  since  the  Puritan  first  lodged  his  diatribe 
against  actor  folk,  there  has  been  a  persistent  cry  for  the 
improvement  of  the  stage.  Societies  for  dramatic  betterment 
have  risen  upon  their  own  hopes  and  fallen  because  of  their 
own  mistakes.  Conditions  are  altered,  not  by  dilettanteism, 
but  by  whole  knowledge  and  sound  conviction.  Audiences 
may  organize  for  the  encouragement  of  particular  plays, 
but  the  big  public  outside  of  cliques  will  have  its  say,  and 
will  register  its  decisions  at  the  box-office.  I  have  seen 
committees  of  various  organizations  at  the  theatre,  sent  to 
report  on  the  relative  merits  of  a  play.  I  have  seen  the 
reports:  trite,  commonplace,  sweepingly  impertinent  in 
approval  or  disapproval.  The  theatre  is  not  harmed  by 
such  a  show  of  false  culture,  and  there  is  some  humor  in  the 
fact  that,  though  the  drama  is  little  influenced  by  such  osten 
tatious  intellectuality,  the  cliques  themselves  are  at  least 
being  made  to  take  themselves  and  the  drama  seriously. 
Undoubtedly  they  would  have  much  more  pleasure  if  they 
were  able,  which  they  are  not,  to  join  the  vulgar  crowd  in 
its  enjoyment.  By  their  superiority,  they  are  violating  the 
very  essential  spirit  of  the  theatre. 

Yet  I  do  not  wish  to  convey  the  idea  that  I  want  this 
connection  between  literature  and  the  theatre  to  be  so  close 
as  to  hinder  the  theatre.  Drama  is  no  handmaiden  to  lit 
erature;  it  is  the  highest  type  of  literary  expression  and  the 
most  difficult  in  which  to  excel.  The  disintegration  of  the 
theatre,  as  we  have  examined  it,  indicates  clearly  that  the 
methods  of  the  Trust  have  not  kept  the  good  play  from  its 
rightful  public,  for  since  the  talk  of  the  "open  door,"  we 
have  had  no  startling  discoveries  in  the  way  of  exceptional 
productions.  The  process  of  reorganization  shows  that  in- 


302  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

tellectual  improvement  must  be  coincident  with  the  higher 
and  more  honest  standard  of  presentation.  For  when  we 
speak  of  social  and  economic  forces  in  the  theatre,  we  speak 
of  the  drama  as  a  commodity  and  as  an  art. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

L'ENVOIE 


PRESENT-DAY  dramatic  criticism  in  America  is  not  an  art, 
but  a  pastime;  one  does  not  have  to  be  specially  trained 
for  the  position,  but  more  generally  assigned  to  the  position, 
which  is  but  another  way  of  claiming  that  a  play  is  more 
likely  to  be  reported  than  to  be  reviewed. 

There  are  legitimate  reasons  for  such  a  status,  reasons 
incontrovertible  without  a  change  in  theatre  management 
on  one  hand  and  in  journalistic  policy  on  the  other.  As 
matters  now  stand,  there  is  not  a  financial  editor  who  does 
not  believe  himself  as  well  equipped  to  render  a  decision 
upon  a  play  as  the  average  theatre  reporter  —  and  no  doubt 
he  is  right.  The  want  of  authority,  other  than  that  attached 
to  the  privilege  of  the  "pass,"  makes  of  the  general  profes 
sional  theatre-goer,  who  writes  a  column  the  morning  after, 
a  figurehead  no  less  than  a  deadhead.  And  it  is  just  this 
lack  of  understanding  as  to  what  his  province  really  is  that 
threatens  to  jeopardize  the  position  of  the  dramatic  critic, 
in  view  of  the  essential  necessity  of  the  press-agent  to  the 
theatre  as  a  business.  At  the  present  moment,  we  are 
witnessing  an  interesting  struggle  for  the  survival  of  the 
fittest;  the  press-agent  of  necessity  is  required  to  systematize 
his  business;  the  dramatic  critic,  save  in  isolated  cases, 
is  not  allowed  to  declare  his  policy. 

The  diversity  of  opinion  that  we  find  in  the  morning  paper 


304  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

after  a  "first  night"  is  more  likely  due  to  an  unpreparedness, 
a  lack  of  critical  viewpoint,  than  to  any  fundamental  logical 
difference.  And  it  is  the  lightness  with  which  the  decision 
is  rendered  that  shakes  the  confidence  of  the  reading  public. 
The  dramatic  critic  rarely  speaks  with  authority;  if  he  does, 
he  is  in  danger  of  hurting  business.  There  is  no  question 
as  to  whether  the  view  of  the  theatre  taken  by  the  city 
editor,  simply  as  a  field  for  possible  sensational  news,  does 
not  detract  from  the  dignity  of  the  critic's  own  department. 
The  city  editor's  stand  and  the  critic's  stand  are  both  legiti 
mate,  yet  they  are  far  from  being  the  same  —  or  else,  they 
should  not  be. 

The  dramatic  critic  is  not  regarded  as  a  necessity;  he 
is  generally  a  sufferance.  It  is  more  often  the  case  that  the 
editor  looks  askance  at  the  prospect  of  engaging  a  man 
who  must,  so  the  inference  runs,  be  possessor  of  a  jaded 
intellect  in  view  of  his  long  service  in  the  theatre.  The 
drama  is  the  only  art  where,  to-day,  it  is  not  a  requisite  to 
have  training  and  experience  to  render  a  decision;  where 
expert  opinion  is  discounted  in  the  face  of  the  reporter  and 
the  press-agent.  After  all,  says  the  average  theatre-goer 
to  the  critic,  it  is  your  opinion  vs.  mine.  You  report  that 
a  play  is  bad;  you  do  not  establish  the  fact  by  any  formula 
tion  of  your  opinion;  my  judgment  is  as  likely  to  be  as 
authoritative.  Because  there  is  a  large  element  of  truth  in 
what  he  says,  dramatic  criticism  is  being  threatened.  -^ 

The  requirements  of  journalism  are  more  favorable  to 
the  reporter  and  to  the  press-agent  than  to  the  critic,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  the  theatre  news  reinforces  the  ad 
vantages  of  advertising.  Those  "  official  critics  "  who  have 
attempted  to  summarize  a  week's  theatre  activity  in  a 
column  or  two  of  the  Sunday  edition  have  either  underesti 
mated  the  mental  capacity  of  their  readers,  or  else  have 
failed,  except  in  a  very  few  cases,  to  understand  that  criticism, 


L'ENVOlE  305 

as  Walkley  has  declared,  is  not  a  parasitic  art  alone,  but  a 
creative  one  as  well  —  creative  of  an  original  outlook  pro 
voked  by  the  exigencies  of  the  occasion,  but  more  naturally 
by  the  force  of  sound  conviction.  James  Huneker  is  a 
representative  of  the  right  type,  but  he  is  no  longer  a 
dramatic  critic  of  the  conventional  order;  he  is  "off  duty 
forever  "  in  the  journalistic  sense. 

Every  man,  in  his  way,  is  a  critic;  he  measures  the  capac 
ity  of  art  by  his  own  capacity  to  enjoy  art.  Hence,  there 
are  among  us  some  few  who  can  span  the  arches  of  a  master 
piece,  and  those  there  are  who  are  good  authorities  on  vaude 
ville!  But  they  are  not  equipped  as  they  should  be  with  the 
complete  understanding  that  assures  one  the  third  dimension 
and  gives  one  glimmering  hope  of  a  possible  fourth.  There 
are  critical  processes  which  do  not  come  within  the  calcula 
tions  of  the  public,  but  which  belong  distinctively  to  the  critic 
—  identification  and  detachment,  characterized  by  Le  Bon 
as  the  psychology  of  the  individual  and  of  the  crowd  — 
the  proper  relation  of  comparative  values  —  the  correct 
and  familiar  uses  of  the  factors  in  technique  —  the  unerring 
appreciation  of  the  creative  forces  behind  art. 

Viewed  in  this  light,  the  work  of  the  dramatic  critic  is 
no  minor  task;  in  its  way  dependent  upon  a  product  out 
side  of  itself,  it  is  at  once  a  dictum  and  an  outlook;  it  is 
restrictive  of  a  form  and  expressive  of  an  idea;  it  is  no  sine 
cure,  but  a  responsibility. 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  appreciation  as  an  exact  science, 
even  though  there  are  recognized  standards  in  drama,  as 
there  are  in  other  art  species,  to  allow  of  Matthew  Arnold's 
definition  of  criticism.  But  it  is  preposterous  to  claim  that 
the  critic  is  so  callous  to  emotional  response  as  to  be  coolly 
conscious  of  a  wilful  juxtaposition  of  the  experiment  with 
the  norm.  He  must  be  a  keen  and  sympathetic  observer 
of  all  that  constitutes  life,  to  recognize  how  perfectly  or  how 


306  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

badly  the  artist  has  re-presented  life  by  means  of  its  most 
progressive,  yet  unconsecutive,  moments.  To  him  the 
playhouse,  in  its  threefold  capacity  of  business,  institution, 
and  art  museum,  becomes  one  of  the  civic  centres  for  deep 
est  realization  of  self-expression.  He  is  to  take  his  orchestra 
chair  with  a  sense  that  though  a  scholar  —  that  is,  a  workman 
with  his  tools  by  right  —  he  is  not  a  scholastic;  that,  though 
writing  for  the  morrow,  he  is  framing  opinion  beyond  the 
morrow;  that,  though  analyzing  what  he  himself  might 
not  be  able  to  do  as  well,  he  is  doing  ably  what  his  experience 
has  made  as  second  nature  to  him.  He  sees  unerringly  and 
his  mind  is  clear.  He  knows  what  good  art  is  and  he  questions 
the  presence  of  bad  art. 

This  is  perhaps  theoretical  and  ideal,  yet  had  we  gone  to 
the  theatre  with  Aristotle,  our  classic  figure  of  a  critic,  we 
would  have  been  taken  behind  the  simulation  of  nature  into 
a  discussion  of  the  very  nature  principles  themselves.  The 
Greeks,  as  dramatic  critics,  were  a  little  contemptuous  of 
this  reflex  life  we  call  drama.  In  fact,  run  your  memory 
along  the  evolution  of  criticism  as  applied  to  the  ancient 
playhouse,  and  you  will  find  that  the  attitude  is  largely 
philosophical,  and  wholly  ruled  out  of  the  present  province 
of  the  dramatic  critic.  In  other  words,  with  the  modern 
recognition  of  the  theatre  as  a  live  activity  in  the  civic  body, 
drama  has  peculiarly  become  severed  from  literature,  of 
which  it  is  a  legitimate  and  significant  part. 

Here,  then,  is  one  of  the  first  steps  in  the  rehabilitation 
of  the  dramatic  critic:  to  realize  that,  however  journalistic 
his  career,  he  stands  primarily  for  the  dramatic  spirit  and 
secondarily  for  the  theatrical  fact.  He  must  claim  for  the 
theatre  its  literary  dignity  —  which  will  place  bits  of  the 
striking  realism  of  Herne  by  the  side  of  a  similar  realism 
in  Howells.  It  is  peculiar  how  closely  to  the  fundamental 
philosophy  of  the  dramatic  both  Mr.  Howells  and  Mr.  James 


L'ENVOIE  307 

stand,  without  possessing  that  burning  sense  of  the  theatre 
which  should  be  an  asset  to  the  theatre  critic.  This  is  no 
doubt  due  to  the  limitation  of  the  novelist,  whose  technique 
is  different  from  that  of  the  dramatist,  a  fact  he  does  not  half 
realize  until  failure  on  the  boards  drives  it  home. 

The  critic,  therefore,  is  doubly  sensitized:  he  is  a  lover 
of  art  and  a  lover  of  life;  he  is  to  keep  them  separate  and 
yet  view  them  conjointly,  even  as  he  measures  his  individual 
impression,  his  estimate  of  the  crowd  from  without  its  circle 
of  appreciation,  and  his  impression  as  a  unit  in  that  crowd. 
His  decisions  are  not  had  by  text-book  definitions;  they  are 
realized  by  right  of  his  possession.  Of  what?  That  by  virtue 
of  which  I  am  I,  meaning  the  public — and  he  the  critic.  Your 
opinion  vs.  mine!  Are  the  conditions  such  as  to  warrant 
my  challenging  the  critical  authority  in  the  theatre? 

We  value  what  Henry  Arthur  Jones  writes  of  the  play 
house,  not  so  much  because  he  is  invigorating,  as  because  he 
is  sane  and  progressive  in  the  face  of  his  national  limitations. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  unwise  for  a  dramatist  to  place  himself 
in  the  position  of  a  critic,  to  furnish  the  weapons  by  which 
later  he  is  almost  invariably  wounded.  Percy  Mackaye 
has  written  a  book  measuring  democratic  tendencies  in  the 
present-day  theatre.  But  it  is  for  the  critic  to  tell  us  what 
the  drama  of  democracy  is  to  be;  the  dramatist  is  to  give 
us  the  type  if  he  can.  It  is  for  the  critic  to  analyze  wherein 
the  poetic  and  commonplace  may  be  blended  on  our  stage; 
the  dramatist  is  to  blend  the  qualities.  The  critical  faculty 
is  always  ahead  of  creative  activity,  but  our  dramatic 
reporter  seems  to  be  almost  slavishly  dependent  upon  the 
product;  he  deals  with  the  new  play  and  does  not  attempt 
to  go  behind  or  beyond  it. 

In  his  prefaces  and  in  his  dramatic  opinions,  Shaw  reveals 
a  rare  discrimination  and  a  delicious  wit;  his  essays  are 
literature  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  personality  rather  than 


308  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

because  of  the  vital  substance  of  the  individual  plays.  This 
is  the  reason  Jones  as  a  critic  is  of  more  sound  importance, 
in  that  he  reflects  tendencies,  movements,  national  feelings, 
rather  than  himself.  The  dominant  personality  of  Shaw 
is  not  the  critical  faculty,  nor  would  the  critic  be  allowed 
his  liberties.  We  accept  his  "Quintessence  of  Ibsenism" 
because  not  everyone  can  discard  Ibsen  so  impertinently 
and  give  us  instead  the  "Quintessence  of  Shaw."  But  he 
is  a  good  handbook  for  critics;  sometimes  we  question 
whether  his  critical  bravery  is  not  wholly  dependent  upon 
Irish  wit. 

Place  Shaw's  book  by  the  side  of  Walter  Eaton's  volumes 
of  American  reviews  culled  from  the  New  York  Sun  and 
other  papers:  the  one  is  brilliant,  the  other  is  excellent  and 
clever,  marred  on  the  one  hand  by  a  journalistic  intimacy  of 
style  and  colloquial  jargon,  and  on  the  other  by  a  staid  New 
England  moral  reticence  which  we  applaud,  despite  its  un- 
progressiveness.  Yet  both  Shaw  and  Eaton  exhibit  in  their 
books  the  underlying  weakness  of  the  dramatic  critic's  claim 
to  literary  permanence.  They  are  dealing  with  transitory 
stuff;  their  critical  sermons  are  founded  upon  theatrical 
quicksand;  they  outline  the  plots  of  plays  that  die  within 
a  twelvemonth. 

Therefore,  the  dramatic  critic,  by  nature  of  his  transitory 
material,  has  somehow  had  thrust  upon  him  the  reporter's 
immediate  expression.  But  the  demand  of  journalism  has 
perverted  the  function  of  dramatic  criticism  as  it  has  the 
scope  of  literary  criticism.  Among  our  newspaper  editors, 
Paul  Elmer  More  alone  has  the  opportunity  of  expressing 
himself  fully  in  the  columns  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post 
and  Nation,  using  the  essay  form.  But  the  dramatic  critic 
who,  in  the  discussion  of  an  inferior  comedy  or  a  mediocre 
farce,  should  brush  it  aside  lightly  in  his  desire  to  pay  tribute 
to  the  excellence  of  Charles  Hoyt,  would  not  only  be  com- 


L'ENVOIE  309 

milling  a  breach  against  reportorial  timeliness,  but  would 
be  committing  a  breach  of  courtesy  against  the  advertising 
column.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  true  dramatic 
criticism  will  flourish  only  after  journalism  recognizes  its 
essential  authority. 

The  critic  and  the  press-agent  are  not  antagonistic  factors 
in  the  theatre  scheme;  the  struggle  that  is  taking  place  is 
due  entirely  to  the  fact  that  the  manager  requires  expert 
system  and  the  editor  is  not  over-anxious  for  expert  decision. 
Through  excellent  systematization,  I  have  heard  a  press- 
agent  claim  that  within  twenty-four  hours  he  could  com 
mand  the  columns  of  a  chain  of  papers  stretching  from 
coast  to  coast;  he  did  not  mean  that  he  could,  or  would, 
limit  the  expression  of  the  critic  on  any  of  these  papers,  but 
that  he  could  send  to  these  papers  sufficiently  attractive 
"dramatic  stories"  to  warrant  their  being  used  as  "copy." 
The  press-agent  is  generally  a  trained  newspaper  man;  if 
he  be  a  wise  man,  he  will  keep  within  the  limit  of  credulity; 
but  his  essential  business  is  to  create  interest  in  his  particu 
lar  "attraction."  In  our  Sunday  papers  we  have  seen  the 
discussion  of  the  race  problem,  and  we  feel  assured  that  the 
press-agent  for  Zangwill's  "The  Melting  Pot"  has  done  some 
intelligent  free  advertising.  He  has,  prompted  by  keen 
instinct,  killed  two  birds  with  one  stone;  he  has  appealed 
to  the  city  editor's  desire  for  bright,  live  "copy";  he  has 
sounded  the  fundamental  note  of  his  play. 

The  common  expression  we  hear  is :  "  Oh,  that  Js  a  press 
story. "  But  the  agent  who  courts  false  sensationalism,  who 
circulates  personalities  that  are  off  color,  who  miscalculates 
the  intelligence  of  the  newspaper  man,  is  not  typical  of  his 
class.  The  press-agent  to-day  is  a  man  of  concentrated  energy, 
with  a  ready  pen  and  a  quick  judgment.  He  must  keep  faith 
with  his  manager  and  with  the  editor.  He  must  not  try  to 
make  the  reporter  believe  that  there  is  good  fishing  in  the 


310  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

Hippodrome  tank,  yet  such  a  wild  story  is  good  advertising, 
if  used  properly. 

A  most  prominent  press-agent  has  written  to  me  of  his 
calling;  his  words,  uttered  with  authority,  are  representative 
of  his  profession.  He  says : 

"The  agent,  having  'held  down  the  dramatic  desk*  him 
self,  understands  the  honor,  pride,  and  traditions  of  the 
position,  and  is  not  likely  to  ask  absurdities  or  impossibilities. 
.  .  .  The  old-time  agent  —  the  man  with  the  high  hat, 
lightning-rod  shirt,  diamond  headlight,  and  the  general 
make-up  of  an  interlocutor  in  a  minstrel  'first  part/  .  .  . 
but  who  cannot  write  two  consecutive  grammatical  sen 
tences,  has  passed  away.  Such  a  one  now  would  be  worse 
than  useless,  except  possibly  in  the  smaller  one-night  towns 
where  glitter  and  imposing  appearance  awe  the  natives.  .  .  . 
It  is  the  man  with  ideas  who  can  write  —  he  it  is  j&vho  suc 
ceeds  as  an  agent  in  the  city  or  on  the  road  to-day  —  the 
quiet,  energetic,  thinking  man  who  studies  the  style,  re 
quirements  and  policy  of  each  paper,  .  .  .  who  gives  to  the 
critic  salient  data  about  plays  and  players,  .  .  .  and  who 
leaves  the  critic  entirely  alone  when  the  latter  is  to  write 
his  opinion  of  the  performance." 

This  is  a  concise  statement  of  the  press-agent's  province; 
he  aids  the  theatre  advertising;  he  is  at  the  service  of  the 
theatre  reporter.  He  has  done  his  work  so  excellently  that 
the  manager  has  come  to  believe  that  no  statement  should 
be  printed  in  a  paper,  sufficiently  strong  to  counteract  the 
good  work  of  the  press-agent  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  force 
of  his  paid  advertising  on  the  other.  We  have  known  in  the 
course  of  theatre  history  instances  where  dramatic  critics 
have  been  removed  because  they  have  spoken  out  fearlessly; 
we  have  been  told  of  other  instances  where  managers  have 
gone  to  the  editor  with  the  demand  that  the  critic  be  re 
moved,  a  demand  reinforced  by  the  threat  of  withdrawing 


L'ENVOIE  311 

newspaper  patronage.  Is  there  a  critic  to-day  worth  the 
sacrifice  in  advertising  of  thousands  of  dollars?  Yet  the 
present  state  of  dramatic  criticism  is  due  to  a  lack  of  moral 
support  on  the  part  of  journalism. 

We  need  a  thorough  rehabilitation  of  this  profession; 
until  that  time  arrives,  we  are  safe  in  pursuing  the  policy 
of  your  opinion  vs.  mine.  It  is  the  drama  itself  that  is 
suffering  from  the  lack  of  dramatic  criticism,  not  the  public. 
Our  reporters  are  toying  with  a  serious  art;  they  are  ex 
ploiting  and  not  attempting  to  create.  But  there  is  no  deny 
ing  that  the  dramatic  critic  who  now  lacks  full  preparation, 
who  is  not  given  authority,  who  does  not  probe  further 
than  he  sees,  will  remain  the  reporter  until  he  is  liberally 
prepared,  is  clothed  in  authority  of  expression,  and  is  afforded 
the  proper  medium  for  full  creative  criticism;  until  he  is 
backed  by  his  editor. 

II 

A  dramatic  critic's  position  is  not  an  easy  one,  and  he  is 
only  on  the  safe  road  when  he  separates  the  personal  from 
the  impersonal.  For  his  opinion  of  a  product  should  in  no 
way  affect  his  opinion  of  the  man  whom  he  criticizes.  It  is 
a  difficult  problem  to  be  critical,  at  the  same  time  realizing 
that  the  personality  of  the  man  was  far  greater  than  his  art 
accomplishment.  In  the  preceding  pages,  strictures  have 
been  made  against  friends,  but  honesty  of  purpose  justifies 
the  statements.  Not  many  authors  have  the  bigness  to 
take  criticism  at  its  face  value,  no  matter  from  what  source, 
and  to  measure  its  sincerity.  In  the  working  out  of  this 
book,  however,  I  have  been  met  with  remarkable  examples 
of  simple  faith  and  cultured  courtesy.  I  look  back  upon 
my  association  with  Mr.  Howard  and  Mr.  Fitch,  and  realize 
that  though  we  sometimes  disagreed  critically,  these  men 
felt  it  worth  while  to  clear  up  their  opinions  or  mine.  I 


312  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

remember  the  serious  intensity  of  Mr.  Mackaye,  who  might 
not  agree  with  me  as  to  the  province  of  the  drama  in  a 
democracy,  but  who,  nevertheless,  accepted  my  opinion 
as  coming  with  no  other  object  than  to  sound  the  truth. 

But  as  soon  as  a  dramatic  critic  appears  between  covers 
in  an  avowed  survey  of  American  drama,  he  then  is  chal 
lenged  on  all  hands.  Some  say,  Does  he  not  realize  that  in 
Louisiana  at  one  time  there  flourished  a  Creole  drama  which 
was  not  only  written,  but  was  acted  in  a  definite  French 
theatre?  And  the  answer  comes:  Yes,  Alcee  Fortier  has 
suggested  a  rich  field  for  the  research  worker,  but  though 
here  was  a  hybrid  type  on  American  soil,  it  had  little  to  do 
with  American  drama  as  we  have  defined  it,  even  though  it 
might  have  been  inspired  by  American  incident.  The  mere 
fact  of  the  foreign  language  would  rule  it  from  our  consider 
ation. 

Others  say,  Why  has  he  so  persistently  ignored  the  women 
dramatists?  And  there  is  only  one  reply  for  that.  After 
one  has  measured  the  excellence  of  Marguerite  Merrington's 
"Captain  Letterblair"  (1892),  and  the  varied  products  by 
Martha  Morton,  Grace  Livingston  Furniss,  Rida  Johnson 
Young,  Margaret  Mayo,  and  Genevieve  Haines,  there  is 
little  to  say  individually  except  that  the  cleverness  of  dia 
logue  and  situation  show  women  to  be  factors  in  the  theatre 
of  to-day.  There  is  only  one  of  them  who  has  established 
a  style  and  an  attitude.  I  mean  Rachel  Crothers,  whose 
"The  Three  of  Us"  and  "A  Man's  World"  display  active 
reasoning.1 

In  other  words,  contemporary  drama  in  America  is  plentiful, 
but  only  after  it  survives  the  newspaper  critic  and  the  public 
should  it  be  reckoned  in  its  relation  to  the  body  dramaturgic 

i  Mrs.  Fiske  has  written  several  effective  playlets,  among  them 
the  following:  "The  Rose,"  "The  Eyes  of  the  Heart,"  and  "A 
Light  from  St.  Agnes." 


rnoto.   by  Otio  Sarony  Co. 


RUPERT  HUGHES 


L'ENVOIE  313 

as  a  whole.  Eugene  Walter's  "The  Easiest  Way"  shows 
excellent  technique  and  poignant  handling,  but  it  is,  after 
all,  only  a  bit  of  reportorial  realism  which  he  has  not  so  far 
surpassed.  At  present  he  does  not  even  justify  the  state 
ment  that  he  is  a  man  of  one  lasting  play,  as  Moody  may 
claim  to  be  in  "The  Great  Divide."  In  a  period  when  nearly 
every  one  inspired  to  write  is  writing  plays,  it  were  futile 
to  give  separate  consideration  to  dramas  which  may  draw 
but  which  in  noway  strengthen  the  dramatic  idea  in  America. 
There  are  numberless  men  who  may  be  grouped  in  the  class 
of  newspaper  paragraphers ;  they  have  given  amusement 
of  various  sorts  to  crowded  houses,  but  they  have  stood  for 
little  more  than  this  popular  amusement.  Richard  Harding 
Davis  belongs  to  this  class;  so  do  Edwin  Milton  Royle, 
Channing  Pollock,  Rupert  Hughes,  Paul  Armstrong,  Willis 
Steele,  Henry  Blossom,  William  Collier,  and  C.  M.  S. 
McClellan.  An  historical  survey  is  never  contemporary, 
and  the  fairest  way  for  a  critic  to  approach  the  theatre  is 
from  the,  standpoint  of  dominant  personalities  and  general 
tendencies.1 

Playwriting  is  lucrative,  but  these  men  and  women  know 
that  it  flourishes  upon  disappointment,  upon  the  power  of 
taking  infinite  pains.  It  has  its  many  forms,  but  in  each 
the  essential  theatrical  requirement  is  construction,  and  it  is 
this  which  proves  the  stumbling  block  to  so  many  aspirants. 
But  there  is  the  equally  important  element  which,  it  is  to  be 
hoped,  the  foregoing  studies  have  emphasized  —  the  element 
which  goes  hand  in  hand  with  construction  —  Idea.  And 
all  these  minor  playwrights,  minor  in  attitude  if  not  in  ac 
complishment,  have  awakened  within  the  past  decade  to  the 
fact  that  the  American  dramatist  will  find  that  Idea  in  the 

1  For  contemporary  records,  the  student  is  referred  to  The 
Theatre  Magazine,  under  the  excellent  editorial  supervision  of 
Arthur  Hornblow. 


314  THE  AMERICAN  DRAMATIST 

hopes  and  passions,  the  struggles,  defeats,  and  victories 
which  constitute  American  life.  That  is  the  forceful  fact 
which  will  persist  after  any  consideration  of  the  American 
dramatist,  from  whatever  viewpoint  he  may  be  regarded. 
And  the  duty  of  the  dramatic  critic  is  to  abet  any  sincere 
effort  that  holds  life  and  truth  above  glory  and  gain. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
DRAMATIST 


[Not  much  permanent  writing  has  been  done  on  the  subject  of  the  American 
drama.  Outside  of  biographies  and  general  theatrical  records,  opinions  concerning 
playwrights  and  theatre  conditions  are  to  be  found  only  in  magazines.  Hence,  the 
student  has  to  resort  to  the  cumulative  indexes.  The  following  references  are  of 
value  simply  as  a  means  of  affording  some  starting-point  for  further  investigation. 
Titles  marked  *  are  books.  See  Bibliography  in  the  present  author's  "  Famous 
Actor-Families  in  America."] 

*Adams,  William  Davenport.     A  Dictionary  of  the  Drama.     1904. 
Ade,  George. 

Father  and  the  Boys.   Excerpts.    Current  Literature,  45 : 316-24. 
His  Work.     Book  Buyer,  19: 254,  1899. 
How  George  Did  It.    Book  Buyer,  25: 316. 
Story  of  his  Work.     Munsey,  29: 465-66. 
Work  of.     W.  D.  Howells.     North  American,  176: 739-43. 
American  on  the  Stage,  The.     J.  B.  Matthews.    Scribner,  28:321. 
*American  Plays  and  Poetry  in  the  Collection  of  C.  F.  Harris. 

Providence,  1874. 

Amusing  People.    Coney  Island.    Frederick  W.  Thompson.   Metro 
politan  Magazine,  32:601-10. 
Audiences,  Theatre,  Psychology  of.   C.  Hamilton.    Forum,  39:234- 

48. 
Beck  Collection  of  Prompt  Books  in  the  New  York  Public  Library. 

Bulletin,  F.,  '06,  pp.  100-48. 
Belasco,  David. 

Advice  to  the  Girl  with  Dramatic  Ambitions.     Woman' 's  Home 

Companion,  31:7. 

Drama,  Opinions  on  the.    Current  Literature,  23: 248. 
Dramatic  Schools.     Cosmopolitan,  35:359-68. 
Man,  The,  and  his  Work.     H.  A.  Harris.      Cosmopolitan,  47: 

755-64. 
Presentation  of  the  National  Drama.      Harper's  Weekly,  48: 

1844-45. 
Theatrical  Syndicate.     Cosmopolitan,  38: 193-98. 


316  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

*Bibliography,  Dramatists. 

Bulletin  of  Bibliography,  No.  18.  38  pp.  Boston  Book  Company, 

1907. 

*Blake.     Historical  Account  of  the  Providence  Stage.     [See  also 
"History  of  the  Providence  Stage,  1762-1891."     George  O. 
Willard.     1891.] 
*Boston  Theatre,  History  of  the.     E.  Tompkins  and  Q.  Kilby. 

Houghton,  1908. 

*Boston,  The  Drama  in.  William  W.  Clapp.  Vol.  IV.,  Chap.  V, 
in  "The  Memorial  History  of  Boston."  Edited  by  Justin 
Winsor.  [See  files  of  Boston  playbills  in  the  Boston  Public 
Library.] 

Boucicault,  Dion.  Rip  van  Winkle.  J.  L.  Ford.  Munsey,  35 :  72. 
[For  Bibliography  on  B.,  see  "Famous  Actor-Families  in 
America."] 

Broadhurst,  George  H.    Man  of  the  Hour.    Excerpts.  Current  Liter 
ature,  42:541-47. 
Brougham,  John. 

"Life,  Stories,  and  Poems.     William  Winter.     Osgood,  1881. 
*Comedians,  A  Group  of.    W.  L.  Keese.    Dunlap  Society  Pub 
lication,  n.  s.,  15,  1901. 
*Brown,   Charles  Brockden,   Life  of.     William  Dunlap.     2  vols. 

Philadelphia,  1815. 
Burlesque,  Home  of  the.    The  Gaiety.    R.  L.  Hartt,    Atlantic,  101: 

68-78. 

W.  D.  Howells.     Atlantic,  23:  635-44. 
American.     L.  Hutton.     Harper,  81 :  59-74. 
Founders  of.      Temple  Bar,  29: 318. 

*Chronology  of  the  American  Stage.     F.  C.  Wemyss.     1852. 
*Clapp,  H.  A.      Reminiscences  of  a  Dramatic  Critic.      Houghton, 

1902. 
*Clapp,  J.  B.,  and  Edgett,  E.  F.      Plays  of  the  Present.      Dunlap 

Society,  1902. 
Closet-Drama.     Dial,  44: 163-65. 

Legitimacy  of  the.   J.  B.  Matthews.   North  American,  187: 213- 

23. 

Colleges,  Art  of  Drama  in.    K.  Merrill.    Education,  26: 419-29. 
Comedy,  Modern.     J.  B.  Matthews.     Blackwood,  19:46. 

Modern  Tendencies  of.     C.  Wyndham.     North  American,  149: 

607-15. 

Nature  of.     Living  Age,  248: 378-81. 
Two  Thousand  Years  of.     C.  S.  A.  Herford.     New  England 

Magazine,  53:441. 

Comic  Opera,  The  Decline  of.  W.  J.  Henderson.  International 
Quarterly,  Jan.,  1905. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  317 

*Covent  Garden  Theatre,  Annals  of,  from  1732-1897.    H.  S.  Wynd- 

ham.     Scribner. 

*Cowell.     Thirty  Years  Among  the  Players. 
Crothers,  Rachel.     Troubles  of  a  Playwright.     Harper's  Bazaar, 

45:4. 
Daly,  Augustin. 

American  Drama  (Daly).     North  American,  142:  485-92. 

Appreciation  of.    A.  I.  Du  P.  Coleman.     Critic,  35:  712-20. 

Catalogue  of  autograph  letters,  playbills,  etc. 

Catalogue  of  his  books. 

Daly.     Donahoe's  Magazine,  42:35-41. 

Daly  Collection.    Charles  H.  Caffin.    Harper's  Weekly,  44:  227- 

28. 

Daly  Library.     Henry  Blackwell.     Booklover's,  200-3. 
Daly's  Stock  Company.     L.  C.  Davis.     Lippincott,  32:  396. 
Daly  Theatre,  American  School  of  Dramatic  Art.    J.  R.  Towse 

and  G.  P.  Lathrop.     Century,  56:261-75. 
Daniel   Frohman   and:    Stock   Companies   Contrasted.        A. 

Brownell.     Bostonian,  3:  292. 
*Diary  of  a  Daly  Debutante.    Being  Passages  from  the  Journal 

of  a  Member  of  the  Daly  Famous  Company  of  Players.  Duf- 

field,  1910. 

Dramatic  Dictator.     Booklover's,  3:401. 

Group  of  Rare  Lambs.   L.  R.  McCabe.   Book  Buyer,  20:  33-40. 
His  Life  Work.       Critic,  35:579;    Cosmopolitan,  27:405-18, 

G.  Kobbe. 

Library  of.     Athenaum,  1900,  1:  371-72. 
Modern  Stage  and.        Saturday  Review,  79:  860.        [See  G.  B. 

Shaw's  "Dramatic  Opinions."] 
.      Story  of  the  Daly  Bible.     L.  R.  McCabe.     Catholic  World,  70: 

809-20. 
Treasures  of  the  Daly  Library.     C.  Shipman.     Critic,  36:  213- 

19. 
[See  also  published  plays  by  Daly;  cf.  his  Shakespeare  edition 

with  the  editing  of  Edwin  Forrest.] 
Daly,  C.  P.    When  Was  the  Drama  Introduced  in  America?    1864. 

[Pamphlet.] 
*The  First  Theatre  in  America.      Dunlap  Society  Publication, 

n.  s.,  v.  1,  1896. 
Davis,  Richard  Harding. 

*Farces:  The  Dictator,  The  Galloper,  etc.     Scribner,  1906. 
Playing  the  Drama.     Collier,  42: 14. 
*Drama,  The:  Its  Laws  and  its  Technique.    Elizabeth  Woodbridge. 

Allyn  and  Bacon,  1898. 
*Study  of  the.     J.  B.  Matthews.     Houghton,  1910. 


318  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Drama  (Continued) 

*Decline  of,  Cause  of.     Dunlap.   American  Theatre,  1 : 407. 
About  Play- Acting.     M.  Twain.     Forum,  26: 143-51. 
Early,  in  Boston.     C.  H.  Pattee.     Bostonian,  2:254. 
Foreign,  on  the  English  and  American  Stage.      No.  II.      C.  C. 

Ayer.     Colorado  University  Studies,  7:  63-72. 
Future  of  the.  Arthur  Bourchier.  Nineteenth  Century,  62:  441-56. 
Modern,  Corner-stones  of  the.     H.  A.  Jones.     Fortnightly,  86: 

1084-94. 

Modern,  The.     William  Archer.     McClure,  34:  3-16. 
National,  Foundations  of  a.     H.  A.  Jones.     North  American, 

186:384-93. 

New,  and  New  Theatre.    William  Archer.    McClure,  34:  3-16. 
of  Democracy.      P.  Mackaye.     Columbia  University  Quarterly, 

10: 173-83. 

of  Ideas.     N.  Hapgood.     Contemporary,  74 :  712-23. 
of  Revolt.     H.  H.  Boyesen.     Bookman,  1 : 384. 
of  the  Moment,  and  Ibsen's  Plays.    H.  A.  Kennedy.    Nineteenth 

Century,  30:258-74. 
Plain  Talk  on  the.    Richard  Mansfield.    North  American,  155: 

308-14. 

Printed,  Plea  for  the.     Current  Literature,  41 :  541-42. 
Social,  Modern.     C.  Hamilton.     Forum,  40:  265-73. 
U.  S.  1881.    To-day  in  America.    J.  Hatton.    2:1. 
Drama,  American.     [See  Cumulative  Indexes.] 

*Two  volumes.    In  the  Victorian  Edition  of  "The  Drama." 

[Edited  by  Alfred  Bates.    Published  by  Smart  and  Stanley.] 

See  Vols.  XIX,  XX. 
A.  Daly.     North  American,  142  f 485-92. 
H.  Garland.     Literary  World  (Boston),  20:  307. 
L.  Button.     Lippincott,  37:  289. 
I.  A.  Pyle.     Lippincott,  60: 131. 

and  the  American  Library.     P.  Wilstach.     Bookman,  8: 134. 
Beginnings  of.     P.  L.  Ford.     New  England  Magazine,  n.  s.,  9: 

673-87. 

Beginnings  of,  in  America.     R.  Davey.     National,  19:  802. 
Beginning  of  the,  in  America.     O.  Wegelin.     Literary  Collector, 

9:177-81. 

Characteristics  of.     A.  Hennequin.     Arena,  1 :  700. 
Dawn  of.     J.  Corbin.     Atlantic,  99:632-44. 
Early.     F.  S.  Gay.     Nation,  88: 136. 
Early.     W.  J.  Neidig.     Nation,  88 : 86-88.          _ 
Future.     D.  Boucicault.     Arena,  2:  641. 
Kicking  out  the  Great.    By  a  Professional  Play-reader.    Mun- 

sey,  41:844-49. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  319 

American  Drama  (Continued) 

Poetic.     L.  C.  Willcox.     North  American,  186:91-97. 
Revisited.     William  Archer.     Independent,  62: 1519-25. 
Drama  in  America. 

American  Quarterly,  1:  331;    American  Whig  Review,  2:  117(E. 

A.  Poe);  Democratic  Review,  40:554;  Dublin  University,  74: 

319;    also  N.    Ecclesiastical,  5:555;    London   Monthly,    16: 

466;  Potter  American  Monthly,  8:  23,  346. 

Dramatic  Critic:  His  Work  and  His  Influence.      E.  A.  Dithmar. 

Forum,  23:237-45. 
Dramatic  Criticism,  Concerning.    R.  M.  Sillard.    Westminster,  150: 

634-40. 

Theory  of.     N.  Hapgood.     Forum,  27: 120-28. 
*Dramatic  Index.       1909,  1910.       Edited  by  Frederick  W.  Faxon. 

Boston  Book  Company. 

Dramatic  Outlook  in  America.   J.B.Matthews.  Harper,  78:  924-30. 
Dramatist  and  the  Theatre.      J.  B.  Matthews.     Century,  79:  3-19. 
Dramatists,  American.     A.  Hornblow.     Munsey,  12:  159.    [See  the 
files  of  the  Theatre  Magazine,  of  which  Mr.  Hornblow  is  the 
Editor.]     A.  Davies.     Cosmopolitan,  40:81. 
Protecting  Native.     Nation,  91 :  504. 
Dramatists,  Our  New  Generation  of.     W.  P.  Eaton.     American 

Magazine,  71:120-29. 

*Dramatization  of  Novels.  J.  B.  Matthews.  See  "Books  and 
Plays"  and  "Pen  and  Ink."  [See  also  Bookman,  28:233; 
Cosmopolitan,  36:387;  Book  Buyer,  19:282;  Nation,  87: 
256-57.] 

Dramatizations.     P.  Wilstach.     Dial,  33 :  5. 

Dunlap,  William,  and  his  Writings.  O.  Wegelin.  Literary  Collector, 
7 : 69-76.  [See  Dunlap's  "History  of  the  American  Theatre." 
1883.] 

*Dunlap,  William.     Kotzebue  references  in  Frederick  H.  Wilkins' 
"Early  Influence  of  German  Literature  in  America."     Ameri 
cana  Germanica,  3: 103-205,  1899. 
*Eaton,  Walter  P.     The  American  Stage  of  To-day.     Small,  May- 

nard,  1908. 

*At  the  New  Theatre  and  Others.     (1908-1910)  1910. 
Economics  and  the  Drama.     J.  G.  Leigh.      Economic  Review,  19: 

174-81. 

Farce,  Return  of.     W.  P.  Eaton.     American  Magazine,  71:  264-73. 
Fitch,  Clyde. 

City,  The.     C.  Hamilton.     Bookman,  31 :  63-66. 
American  Playwright.     C.  Hamilton.     Bookman,  30:  135-38. 
As  a  Dramatist.    J.  R.  Towse.    Nation,  84:  526-27. 
Bachelor,  The.    C.  Hamilton.     Forum,  41 :  340-41. 


320  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Clyde  Fitch  (Continued} 

Critical  Appreciation.    M.  Birnbaum.    Independent,  67:  123-31. 
*Clyde  Fitch:  A  Tribute.    As  a  Foreword  to  "  A  Wave  of  Life." 

[Signed,  M.  J.  M.] 
Dramatist  as  a  Man  of  Letters.    W.  P.  Eaton.    Scribner,  47: 

490-97. 
How  He  Writes  His  Plays.     Ada  Patterson.     Theatre,  7:  14- 

16,  vii. 
Impersonal  Note  in  Criticism.     A.  Dale.     Cosmopolitan,  47: 

347-52. 

Popular  Playwright.     Putnam,  7:  244-46. 
Sketch.     Nation,  89:240. 
Current  Literature,  47:316-17;  47:552-54. 
*Forrest,  Edwin,  Life  of.     W.  R.  Alger.     1877.    ; 
Frohman,  Charles. 

Character  Sketch.     S.  E.  MofTat.     Cosmopolitan,  33:293-96. 

Frohman's  Repertory.     Blackwood,  187:580-82. 

New  Phases  of  Theatre  Management.     Harper's  Weekly,  48: 

2022-24. 

Sketch  of  Frohman.     Munsey,  21 :  945. 
When  Actors  Play  to  an  Audience  of  One.     J.  D.  Williams. 

Ladies'  Home  Journal,  27:  9. 
Frohman,  Daniel. 

Manager's  View  of  the  Stage.     Harper's  Weekly,  48: 1988-89, 

1999. 
*Memories  of  a  Manager:  Reminiscences  of  the  Old  Lyceum. 

Doubleday,  1911. 

Tendencies  of  the  American  Stage.     Cosmopolitan,  38: 15-22. 
Theatres,  The,  and  the  Public.     Independent,  64:252-53. 
*Garnett,  Porter.    The  Bohemian  Jinks.    Bohemian  Club.     1908. 
*Grau,  Robert.       Forty  Years'  Observation  of  Music  and  Drama. 

1909. 

*The  Business  Man  in  the  Amusement  World.     1910. 
*Hamilton,  Clayton.     The  Theory  of  the  Theatre.     Holt,  1910. 
*Hapgood,  Norman.        The  Stage  in  America,  1897-1900.        Mac- 

millan,  1901. 
Howard,  Bronson.     His  Work.     Bookman,  10: 195. 

Our  Schools  for  the  Stage.     (B.  H.)     Century,  61: 28-37. 
The  Banker's  Daughter.     J.  L.  Ford.     Munsey,  34: 122,  199. 
The  Plays  of.     Century,  3: 465. 

Howells,  W.  D.     A  New  Taste  in  Theatricals.    Burlesques.    Atlan 
tic,  23:635-44. 

*Criticism  and  Fiction.     Harper,  1892. 
John  T.  Raymond  as  Col.  Sellers.     Atlantic,  35f749-51. 
Plays  of  Henry  Arthur  Jones.    North  American,  186:  205—12. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  321 

Hoyt,  Charles  H.     An  Analysis  of  his  Farces.   \Bostonian,  3 :  386. 
Humor,  American,  and  Bret  Harte.      G.  K.  Chesterton.      Critic, 
41 : 170-74.     [In  "  Varied  Types."] 

American  Humorists.     J.  Benton.     Bookman,  21:  584-89. 

American  Sense  of.     H.  Roof.     Outlook,  96:  311-16. 

Broad  American.     N.  Hapgood.     [Weber  and  Fields.]    See  his 
"The  Stage  in  America." 

Capable  Humorist.     M.  Twain.    Harper's  Weekly,  53:  13. 

Century  of  American.    J.  L.  Ford.    Munsey,  25 : 482-90. 

Essence  of.    A.  C.  Benson.    Putnam,  3:  48-54. 

Essence  of  American.     C.  Johnstone.     Atlantic,  87:  195-202. 

Feminine  Humorists.        A.  B.  Maurice.       Good  Housekeeping, 
50:34-39. 

First  Lessons  in.     C.  Wells.     Century,  64:  77-83. 

Holmes  as  a  Humorist.   J.  W.  Linn.    University  of  Chicago  Mag 
azine,  2:  16-23. 

Mr.  Dooley.    Living  Age,  267:  439-41. 

Newspaper.     W.  D.  Nesbit.     Independent,  54:  804—6. 

Place  of  American.     F.  Treudley.     Educational  Review,  40:  92- 
96. 

Retrospect  of  American.     W.  P.  Trent.     Century,  63:  45-64. 

Sense  of  Nonsense.     Carolyn  Wells.    Scribner,  29:  239-48. 

Some  Humorists.    L.  Hancock.    Bookman,  16: 15-22. 

Word  Concerning  American.     J.  K.  Bangs.     Book  Buyer,  20: 

205-8. 

*Hutton,  L.     Curiosities  of  the  American  Stage.     Harper,  1891. 
*Ireland,  J.  N.     History  of  the  Stage  in  New  York.      (1750-1860.) 

1866. 

*James,   Henry.      Brownell.     W.    C.      American  Prose   Masters, 
pp.  339-400.     Atlantic,  95 : 496-519. 

American,  The,  on  the  Stage.     Atlantic,  68:  846-48. 

*French  Poets  and  Novelists.     Macmillan.     1893. 

Theatricals.     London,  1894. 

*Views  and  Reviews.     Boston,  1908. 

Klaw,  Marc.  Theatrical  Syndicate.     Cosmopolitan,  38: 199-201. 
Klein,  Charles. 

Daughters  of  Men.     Excerpts.     Current  Literature,  42:73-77. 

Klein  and  the  Third  Degree.     A.  Ruhl.     Collier,  42: 17. 

Lion  and  the  Mouse.    Excerpts.    Current  Literature,  42:  427- 
33. 

Merriwold  Dramatists.     B.  Millard.     Bookman,  29:  627-33. 

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322  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Charles  Klein  (Continued) 

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BIBLIOGRAPHY  323 

New  Theatre  (Continued) 

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Drama  and  the.     Norman  Hapgood.     "The  Stage  in  America." 
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J.  M.  Porter.     Macmillan,  40:244. 

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Moral  Influence  of  the  Drama.    North  American,  136 :  581-606. 
Why  Theatrical  Managers  Reject  Plays.   Forum,  15:  614-20. 
Panic,  Theatres  and  the.     D.  Frohman.     Independent,  64:252-53. 
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Chapter  XX,  "Pantomime  in  America."] 
*Payne,  John  Howard,  Life  of.    Gabriel  Harrison.   Lippincott,  1885. 

[Contains  a  Bibliography  of  his  plays.] 
Play,  First,  in  America.     W.  J.  Neidig.     Nation,  88:86-88. 
F.  L.  Gay.     Nation,  88: 136. 
Problem,  Moral  Aspects  of  the.    L.  W.  Flaccus.    Atlantic,  102: 

638-46. 
The  Matter  of  the.    M.  M.  Fiske.     International    Monthly,  5: 

629. 

*Plays,  Early  American  (1714-1830).     O.  Wegelin.     Literary  Col 
lector  Press,  1905.    [See  also  Dunlap  Society  Publication,  n.  s., 
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324  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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Plays,  More  Early  American.    O.  Wegelin.     Literary  Collector,  2: 

82-84. 
Plays,  Printing  of.     C.  H.  Meltzer.     Independent,  62:20-23. 

Publishing  of.    J.  B.  Matthews.    North  American,  182:  414-25. 
that  Don't  Get  Played.    J.  Corbin.    World's  Work,  20: 13035- 

41. 
Playwright  and  his  Players.     J.  B.  Matthews.     Scribner,  45: 116- 

20. 

and  Playgoers.     J.  B.  Matthews.     Atlantic,  102:  421-26. 
Unproduced,  and  his  Play.    G.  Middleton.    Reader,  10:  167-76. 
Playwrights,  Dearth  of.     Nation,  84:448-49. 
in  the  United  States.     Bookman,  30: 35-38. 
Younger  American.     C.Hamilton.     Bookman,  32:249-57. 
Playwriting,  Success  in.     E.  Marbury.    Harper's  Weekly,  49:  1786; 

1792-93. 
Poetry  and  the  Stage.      S.  Gwynn.       Fortnightly,  91:  337-51;  also 

Living  Age,  261 : 3-14. 

Press-Agent,  Theatrical.     Independent,  59:191-96. 
*Ritchie,  Anna  Cora  Mowatt.     Autobiography. 

On  Frances  Anne  Kemble.     Macmillan,  68: 190. 
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Stage.    Our  National.    James  L.  Ford.    McClure,  32:  491-99. 

Passing  of  the  Great.     W.  P.  Eaton.     Munsey,  41:  311-22. 
Stage  Management,  Neglect  of.     W.  P.  Eaton.     American  Maga 
zine,  71 : 400-9. 

Stock  Companies  and  their  Earnings.    Geoffrey  Monmouth.    Book 
man,  31:276-81. 

Syndicate,  The.     Norman  Hapgood.     In  "The  Stage  in  America." 
Theatrical,  Rise  and  Fall  of.     W.  P.  Eaton.     American  Maga 
zine, 


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Tarkington,  Booth.          Sister  Arts:  Novel  or  Drama  for  pathos  or 

comic  hits.     Collier,  42:  15. 
Theatre,  American.     Early  Days.     Dial,  7:  271. 

First.         G.  H.  Moore.     North  American  History,  21:  58. 
Over-production  in  the.     C.  Hamilton.     Forum,  42 :  353-65. 
Paucity  of  Themes  in  the.     C.  Hamilton.    Forum,  41:  544-51. 
Present  Condition  in.     J.D.Barry.     Booklover's,  5:  239. 
Seilheimer.     Athenceum,  '90,  1:56. 
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and  the  American  Stage.    H.  Modjeska.    Forum,  14:  337-44. 
Business  of  a.     W.  J.  Henderson.    Scribner,  25:  297-314. 
Business  Side  of  the.    Hartley  Davis.    Everybody,  21 :  665-74. 
Subscription.     W.  D.  Ho  wells.     Literature,  4:  313-14. 
Trust  on  View.     J.  R.  Towse.     Nation,  80:348. 
Vaudeville.     E.  M.  Royle.     Scribner,  26:485-95. 
What  is  the  Matter  with  the?    J.  S.  Metcalfe.     World's  Work, 

16:10204-7. 
Theatrical  Business  in  America.  C.  Hawtrey.   Fortnightly,  79:  1010- 

16. 

Conditions.     Nation,  84: 182-83. 
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[In  "Stage  Affairs  in  America  To-day."] 
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500. 

Stock  and  Its  Dividend.   G.  Monmouth.  Bookman,  31:  276-81. 
Theatrical  Trust.       Cause  of  Degradation  of  Drama.       J.  Ranken 

Towse.     Nation,  84:448-49. 
Thomas,  Augustus. 

And  the  Bogy  Man.     A.  Ruhl.     Collier,  44:  23. 
Autobiographical  Sketch.     Outlook,  94:212-14. 
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Harvest  Moon.    Excerpts.    Current  Literature,  47:  661-68. 
How  I  Wrote  My  Greatest  Play.     A.  T.     Delineator,  73:  221- 

22. 
Typical  American  Dramatist.     V.  W.  Brooks.     World's  Work, 

18:  11882-85. 

Witching  Hour.    Excerpts.     Current  Literature,  46:  544-51. 
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[See    also  Harper's  Weekly,  44:  947;      Munsey,  24:  413-19; 

27:522;  Bookman,  14:449;  Critic,  44:205;  Sewanee  Review, 

April,  1907.] 

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published. 

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day." 


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What  is  a.    H.  Caine  and  R.  Buchanan.    Academy,  34:  15,30. 
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1887. 
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Business  Side  of.     H.  Davies.     Everybody,  17:  527-37. 

Decay  of.    American  Magazine,  69:  840-48. 

Decline  of.     Harper,  106:  811-15. 

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411-20. 

In.     H.  Davies.     Everybody,  13:231-40. 

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INDEX 


Actor,  the,  and  his  special  role,  40 

Actor,  the  American,  268;  and  the 
American  type,  50 

Adams,  Maude,  and  "The  Maid  of 
Orleans,"  232 

Adaptations  and  the  American 
manager,  56 

Ade,  George,  career  of,  260,  261; 
explains  "The  Sho-Gun,"  261; 
defines  American  drama,  261; 
characteristics  of  his  plays,  261; 
his  first  plays,  261 

Advertising,  theatrical,  deceptive,  38 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  and 
"Judith  of  Bethulla,"  300 

America  and  the  foreign  spirit,  9; 
and  the  common  clay,  10;  and 
the  technique  of  Ibsen,  10;  and 
Maeterlinck,  10;  and  spiritual 
struggle,  28 

America's  solution  of  social  prob 
lems,  10 

American  acting,  the  golden  era  of, 
and  Belasco,  115 

American  and  English  life  con 
trasted,  17 

American  character,  the,  14;  and 
the  play,  300 

American  drama,  essentials  of, 
11-36 

American  Dramatists  Club,  282 

American  girl,  the  theatrical,  86 

American  historical  drama,  45. . 

American  idea,  the,  88,  89 

American  life  and  action,  31;  and 
American  drama,  12;  distin 
guishing  features  of,  9;  where  is 
the  true,  92 

American  spirit,  the,  in  De  Mille's 
"Strongheart,"  15,  16 

American  themes  that  persist,  47 

American,  the,  in  defeat,  14 


American  type,  the,  75,  76 
Americans  characterized,  23 
Ames,  Winthrop,  as  director  of  the 
New  Theatre,  265;    as  a  success 
ful  manager,  274 
Amusement  concentration,  290 
Archer,     William,     and     Granville 

Barker,  264,  265 
Aristotle  on  tragedy,  245;    and  the 

ludicrous,  255,  256 
Art  and  business,  267 
Audience,  interest  of  the  five-cent, 

211 

Audiences  and  the  open,  235 
Authors,     American,     and     foreign 

literature,  59 

Avery  Gallery  of  Columbia  Uni 
versity,  284 

Baker,  Professor  George  P.,  his 
course  in  drama,  230  (note) 

"  Banker's  Daughter,  The,"  changes 
in,  87 

Barrett,  Lawrence,  and  Howells,  64 

Barrie,  James  M.,  and  sentiment, 
225;  and  the  Comic  Spirit,  252  _, 

Beers,  H.  A.,  quoted,  62 

Belasco,  David,  and  Herne,  94, 
95,  116;  and  the  psychology  of 
the  switchboard,  111;  early  in 
fluences,  112;  and  Boucicault, 
112;  the  painter,  112;  analyzed, 
112,  113;  the  dramatist,  113;  his 
education,  113,  114;  his  tastes, 
114;  early  years,  114;  his  parents 
come  to  America,  114;  in  San 
Francisco,  114;  and  the  priest 
hood,  114;  as  a  stage  manager, 
115,  126;  re-writes  Shakespeare, 
115;  his  first  play,  115;  the  strug 
gling  actor,  115;  at  Lincoln  Col 
lege,  115;  and  the  golden  era  of 


328 


INDEX 


American  acting,  115;  and  E.  A 
Sothern,  115;  manager  of  the 
Baldwin  Theatre,  San  Francisco, 
116;  on  the  Pacific  slope,  116; 
becomes  Boucicault's  secretary, 
116;  decides  to  go  to  New  York, 
117;  engaged  by  the  Mallorys, 
117;  at  the  Madison  Square 
Theatre,  117;  shapes  "The  Young 
Mrs.  Winthrop,"  118;  and  the 
quiet,  domestic  play,  118;  train 
himself  as  a  manager,  118,  119; 
his  published  plays,  119  (note); 
his  early  plays,  119;  and  the 
Passion  Play,  120;  career  be 
tween  1890-95,  120;  collaborates 
with  De  Mille,  120;  writes  "Lord 
Chumley"  with  De  Mille,  120; 
and  Sophocles,  120  (note) ;  creates 
a  distinctive  atmosphere,  121; 
his  "The  Heart  of  Maryland," 
121;  his  "Zaza,"  121;  difficulty 
with  the  Trust,  121,  122;  his 
"stars,"  122;  his  collaborators, 
122;  his  plays  in  collaboration, 
122,  123;  his  detailed  manu 
scripts,  123;  his  "The  Darling 
of  the  Gods,"  123;  his  recent 
successes  (1909-11),  123  (note); 
detail  in  the  first  act  of  "Zaza," 
123;  the  barbaric  note  in  his 
plays,  124;  and  Sardou,  124;  and 
the  switchboard,  125,  128;  his  stu 
dio,  126;  his  "light-plots,"  126;  at 
rehearsal,  126,  128;  his  theatrical- 
ism,  133;  his  position,  134;  his 
effectiveness,  134;  as  a  reviser 
of  plays,  136;  writes,  with  Charles 
Klein,  "The  Music  Master," 
156 

Bird,  Robert  Montgomery,  plays 
by,  66  (note);  his  "The  Glad 
iator,"  66 

Bohemian  Club,  The,  of  San  Fran 
cisco,  235 

Boker,  George  Henry,  his  "Fran- 
cesca  da  Rimini,"  61;  his  career, 

67,  68;     his    plays,    68    (note); 
quoted  on  "Francesca  da  Rimini," 

68,  69;    his  method  of  work,  68- 


70;  criticized  by  Richard  Henry 
Stoddard,  70 

"Books,"  comic  opera,  241 

Boucicault,  Dion,  57;  on  the 
American  drama,  57;  and  Eng 
lish  managers,  76;  and  audiences, 
111;  and  the  Madison  Square 
Theatre,  118;  gathering  facts 
about,  282 

Brackenridge,  Hugh  Henry,  dramas 
by,  45 

British  Army,  the,  and  the  American 
drama,  43 

Brougham,  John,  and  New  York  in 
1842,  53;  and  W.  E.  Burton,  55 

Browning's  "A  Blot  in  the  'Scutch 
eon,"  223 

Burgoyne,  General,  as  a  dramatist, 
43 

Burnett,  Mrs.  F.  H.,  161,  166 

Butcher,  Prof.,  and  tragedy,  246; 
and  the  human,  255 

Cardboard  play,  the,  154 

Carleton's  "Memnon,"  27 

Chanfrau's  Mose,  52 

Character,  sense  of,  169 

"Chimmie  Fadden"  and  other 
modern  types,  52 

Closet-drama,  our  literary  and, 
59-72 

Closet-dramatist,  the,  62 

Coburn  Players,  the,  234 

Cohan,  George  M.,  260;  his  plays, 
241 

Coleridge  and  a  point  of  relative 
rest,  220;  and  drama,  222;  on 
the  drama,  223 

College  drama,  230,  231  (note) 

College  of  the  City  of  New  York, 
drama  in  the,  230 

Columbian  Celebration  Company 
and  Steele  Mackaye,  151 

Comedy  and  tragedy,  243;  vs. 
tragedy,  248,  251;  the  tragic  in, 
249;  examples  of,  249;  poor 
analysis  of,  251;  and  tragedy  de 
fined  by  Matthews,  254;  and 
the  Greeks,  255,  256;  and  Shake 
speare,  256;  need  for  a  book  on, 


INDEX 


329 


257;  defined  by  Meredith,  257, 
258;  bibliography  of,  263 

Comedy  of  manners,  179 

Comic  emotion  defined,  255 

Comic  opera,  240 

Comic  poet,  255 

Comic  spirit,  the,  251,  252,  254,  263; 
and  Barrie,  252;  and  Percy  Mac- 
kaye,  252;  and  fun,  253;  in  litera 
ture,  253;  and  Moliere,  256. 

Communal  aspects  of  the  theatre,  2 

Condition,  social,  in  drama,  7 

Congreve  on  humor,  256 

Conrad,  Robert  T.,  66;  his  "Jack 
Cade,"  27 

"Contrast,  The,"  49 

Courtney,  W.  L.,  on  tragedy,  245 

Craig,  Gordon,  and  the  theatre, 
133 

Creole  drama  mentioned,  312 

Crinkle,  Nym,  and  Steele  Mackaye, 
145,  149 

Critic  and  dramatist,  36 

Critic,  dramatic,  work  of  the,  304, 
305,  307 

Critical  and  creative  faculties,  the, 
29 

Criticism,  dramatic,  need  for,  298 

Criticism,  theory  of,  305 

Critics  of  the  theatre,  2 

Crothers,  Rachel,  and  "The  Three 
of  Us,"  83;  and  her  plays,  312 

Crowd,  the,  and  drama,  3;  and  the 
dramatist,  6 

Daly,  Augustin,  activity  of,  56,  117; 
library  of,  280;  and  the  American 
drama,  77;  on  the  American 
drama,  57 

Davis,  Owen,  190;  quoted,  31,  32; 
evolution  of,  32;  situation  in 
plays  of,  191;  career  of,  191,  192; 
attitude  toward  melodrama,  192; 
on  melodrama,  192-194;  "Con 
vict  999,"  194;  plays  of,  194, 
and  note. 

Davis,  Richard  Harding,  "Soldiers 
of  Fortune"  quoted,  17 

Dazey,  C.  T.,  "In  Old  Kentucky," 
37 


Definitions,  need  of  new,  in  drama, 
262 

Delsarte,  Francois,  and  Steele  Mac 
kaye,  142 

De  Mille,  Henry,  and  the  Madison 
Square  Theatre,  118;  as  a  reader 
of  plays,  118,  136;  collaborates 
with  Belasco,  120;  association 
with  Mackaye,  135 

De  Mille,  William,  137;  and  Percy 
Mackaye,  136,  137 

Destiny,  modern  conception  of,  5 

Dialogue,  sense  of,  169 

Dime-novel  period  in  America,  188  ' 

Disintegration  and  regeneration  of 
the  theatre,  288-302 

Drama,  as  a  social  force,  1-10; 
growth  of,  3;  philosophical 
growth  of,  3;  modern  social, 
and  its  moral  purpose,  4;  and 
clash  of  wills,  4;  the  social,  5, 
6;  social  drama  and  the  critics, 
6;  and  action,  7;  and  the  "little 
moments,"  18,  222;  factors 
considered  in,  18;  and  dra 
matic  form,  18;  defined,  19-21; 
essential  demand  of,  21;  and 
literature  of  national  fibre,  24; 
of  condition,  24;  and  the  repor- 
torial  instinct,  26;  English,  and 
literary  standards,  28;  trend  of, 
from  1750  to  1870,  37;  Quaker 
feeling  against,  42;  and  the 
literary  attitude,  61;  foreign, 
the  formula  of,  86;  externalizing, 
154,  155;  and  music,  relation 
of,  187;  and  the  poet,  216,  217, 
224;  and  quotidian  happenings, 
219;  and  passion,  220;  and  in- 
definiteness,  220;  and  the  Eng 
lish  poets,  221;  and  opera,  223; 
and  life,  225;  and  unseen  forces, 
226;  status  of  present  day,  229; 
imitation  of  ancient  attitude  in 
modern,  232;  civic  expressions 
of,  236,  237;  and  education,  237; 
and  old  moulds,  239;  present 
day  modifications  in,  239,  240; 
and  the  university,  253;  com 
mercial  regulation  of,  267;  books 


330 


INDEX 


on  the,  and  the  auctioneer,  280; 
original  sources  in,  282;  gaps  in 
the  study  of,  282;  transitory  char 
acter  of,  283;  rare  books  on  the, 
285;  university  attitude  toward, 
286;  word  national  applied  to, 
286,  287;  comparative  aspects 
of,  287;  present  changes  in,  292; 
critiques  on  the,  297,  298;  im 
proving  attitude  toward,  299; 
and  literature,  301;  bettering 
the,  301 

Drama,  American,  a  subdivision  of 
English  drama,  11;  defined  by 
American  dramatists,  12;  problem 
of  defining,  12;  and  democracy, 
13;  and  "uplift,"  13;  and  the 
"square  deal,"  13;  and  history, 
23;  imitative,  27;  historical 
trend  of,  28;  early,  44;  value  of, 
before  1870,  58;  interest  of 
literary  men  in,  65;  existence  of 
an,  74;  before  1870,  75;  and  the 
managers,  76;  a  market  for,  89; 
neglect  of,  91;  Poe  on,  215; 
forms  of,  239-263;  Ade  defines, 
261;  readable,  299;  and  Idea, 
313;  dramatic  critic's  duty 
toward,  314 

Drama,  poetic,  in  America,  91; 
should  it  be  dramatized?  215- 
226;  has  no  monopoly  on  poetry, 
216;  and  the  poet,  216;  is  drama 
twice  removed,  217;  vs.  drama, 
220;  characteristics  of,  221;  ex 
amples  of  the,  223;  material  for, 
225;  misnomer  of  the,  226 

Drama,  the  realistic,  and  James  A. 
Herne,  90 

Dramatic  conventionalities,  83 

Dramatic  critic,  lack  of  authority, 
304;  work  of  the,  305,  306;  re 
habilitation  of  the,  306,  307;  the 
dramatist  as,  307;  limitations  of 
the,  308 

Dramatic  critics  removed,  310 

Dramatic  criticism,  303;  and  the 
personal  element,  311;  rehabili 
tation  of,  311 

Dramatic  curve,  20 


Dramatic  history,  revelations  of,  22 

Dramatic  library,  need  for  a,  277- 
287;  reasons  for  need,  278;  re 
quirements  of  a,  283,  284;  and 
New  York  city,  285;  attempts  to 
found  a,  285;  phases  of  a,  286; 
the  spirit  in  founding  a,  287 

Dramatic  writing,  the  first  Ameri 
can,  42 

Dramatist,  the  real,  1;  and  the  life 
of  his  time,  4;  three  essential  ob 
jects  of  the,  7;  narrow  vision  of 
the  social,  7;  his  trade,  35;  high 
speed  of  the,  172 

Dramatist,  the  American,  and  ex 
ternal  stage  craft,  30;  and  the 
New  Theatre,  270 

Dramatists,  Southern,  of  the  old 
regime,  60;  some  literary,  67 

Dramatization,  242;  and  the  novel 
form,  243;  defects  of,  20 

Dramatizations  and  audiences,  242, 
243 

Drew,  Mrs.  John,  and  scenic  realism, 
112 

Dundreary,  and  other  built  parts,  40 

Dunlap,  William,  influenced  by 
Kotzebue,  47;  his  "Andre,"  46; 
his  plays,  49  (note) ;  account,  48, 
49 

Eaton,  W.  P.,  as  a  dramatic  critic, 

308 

Electrical  "plots,"  127 
Electrician,   the,   and    the   theatre, 

125;     at   rehearsal,    127;     behind 

the  scenes,  128,  129 
Eliot,  George,  and  Steele  Mackaye, 

144 
Emerson  and  Ibsen,  221 

"Famous  Actor-Families  in  Amer 
ica"  and  Galton's  law,  135 

Fiske,  Mrs.,  and  her  plays,  312 
(note) 

Fitch,  Clyde,  "The  City,"  156, 
182;  at  rehearsal,  157;  and  Au 
gustus  Thomas  in  comparison, 
159;  his  local  sense,  169-185; 
and  Pinero,  170,  171;  plays  of, 


INDEX 


331 


171,  172  (note);  "Knighting  of 
the  Twins,"  172;  as  realist,  ro 
manticist,  and  sentimentalist,  173 ; 
as  feminist,  173;  his  tempera 
ment,  173;  his  use  of  the  unusual, 
173;  "The  Smart  Set,"  173;  and 
Idea,  174;  on  drama,  174;  and 
foreign  drama,  175;  and  imita 
tion,  175;  a  New  York  dramatist, 
175,  176,  181,  182,  183;  charac 
teristics  of  his  plays,  176;  "The 
Climbers,"  177;  varied  types  of 
his  dramas,  177;  his  feminism 
and  his  characteristics,  177;  clev 
erness  and  similarity  of  his  plays, 
178;  method  of  his  humor,  178; 
"Captain  Jinks  of  the  Horse 
Marines,"  178;  his  last  trip 
abroad,  179,  180;  his  limitations, 
179;  his  technique,  180;  his 
roles,  180,  181;  his  published 
plays,  181;  his  method  of  work, 
181,  183,  184;  bibliography,  181 
(note),  182;  his  personality,  182; 
his  critics,  182;  characteristics 
summarized,  182;  his  invention, 
183;  his  ethics,  183;  his  develop 
ment,  184;  the  future,  184,  185; 
and  the  poetry  of  ordinary  ex 
istence,  226;  need  of  a  Fitch 
Memorial,  283 

Folk-drama,  235 

Footlights,  132 

Ford,  Paul  Leicester,  quoted,  44 

Forrest,  Edwin,  and  the  American 
stage,  59;  encourages  American 
dramatists,  66 

"Francesca  da  Rimini"  on  the 
stage,  70,  71  (note);  Boker's 
play  criticized,  71 

Francke,  Kuno,  quoted,  3;  and 
modern  Germany,  6 

Frohman,  Charles,  and  Daniel  Froh- 
man,  57;  his  position,  293 

Frohman,  Daniel,  quoted,  23 

Galsworthy's  "Strife,"  228,  272 
Garland,  Hamlin,  and  locality,  12; 

on  Mrs.  Herne,  101 
George,  Henry,  on  "  Shore  Acres,"  97 


Germans,  the,  and  comedy,  257 

Germany's  influence  on  American 
drama,  47 

Gilbert,  W.  S.,  and  opera  librettists, 
239;  and  his  "books,"  241 

"Gilded  Age,  The,"  dramatized,  51 

Gillette,  William,  164-168;  his  play 
of  purpose,  164;  his  youthful 
career,  164;  his  ability  to  amuse, 
164;  and  the  well-made  play, 
164;  "The  Private  Secretary," 
165,  166;  his  early  career,  165; 
"Sherlock  Holmes,"  165;  "Held 
By  the  Enemy,"  166;  dependence 
on  French  and  German,  166  and 
note;  his  early  dramatic  ven 
tures,  166;  his  original  plays,  166; 
"Electricity,"  166;  "Secret  Ser 
vice,"  167;  adaptation  of  Bern 
stein's  "Samson,"  167;  in  Bar- 
rie's  "The  Admirable  Crichton," 
167;  his  sentiment,  167;  green 
lights  and  cigars,  167;  his  caution, 
167;  and  melodrama,  168 

"Girl  of  the  Golden  West,  The,"  as 
an  opera,  123  (note) 

Greek,  the,  out-of-doors,  235 

Greeks  and  comedy,  the,  255;  and 
tragedy,  249;  as  dramatic  critics, 
306 

Greet,  Ben,  230,  234 

Gummere,  Professor,  and  the  vocero, 
245 

Guthrie,  Dr.,  defines  comic  emotion, 
255 

Hackett,  James  H.,  and  American 
characterizations,  50;  and  "Yan 
kee"  Hill,  50 

Hallam,  William,  the  first  road  or 
ganizer,  42 

Hamilton,  Clayton,  and  the  theory 
of  the  theatre,  6 

Hapgood,  Norman,  on  Gillette's 
acting,  165 

Harrigan,  Edward,  259;  and  Hart, 
259;  their  careers,  259;  plays  by, 
260  (note) 

Hauptmann  mentioned,  4 

"Hazel  Kirke,"  147 


332 


INDEX 


Herne,  James  A.,  and  the  American 
soil,  30;  and  his  compromise,  30; 
and  realism,  31;  and  the  realistic 
drama,  90;  his  original  position, 
91;  his  faults,  91,  92;  his  excel 
lence,  92;  his  clarity  of  vision,  92; 
his  early  life,  93;  his  sense  of 
modern  treatment,  93;  his  parent 
age,  93;  joins  the  theatre,  93;  his 
first  appearance,  93;  supports 
Lucille  Western,  94;  early  career 
as  an  actor,  94;  in  San  Francisco, 
94;  his  Dickens'  characters),  94; 
his  first  marriage,  94;  and  Belasco, 
94,  95;  his  second  marriago,  95; 
and  the  Boucicault  drama,  96; 
his  acting  in  "Shore  Acres,"  96; 
Henry  George's  letter  on  "Shore 
Acres,"  97;  his  plots,  97;  "Hearts 
of  Oak,"  98;  and  the  common 
place,  98;  "Drifting  Apart,"  98; 
"The  Rev.  Griffith  Davenport," 
98,  99,  100;  historical  studies, 
99;  critic  of  his  own  plays,  100; 
quoted  on  art,  100;  his  intellec 
tual  growth,  101;  "Margaret 
Fleming,"  101;  his  two  types, 
102;  his  literary  recognition,  102; 
dedication  of  "Shore  Acres,"  102 
(note);  "Margaret  Fleming1"  on 
the  stage,  102,  103;  forsakes  stark 
realism,  103;  as  stage  manager, 
103,  104;  at  "Ashmont,"  104; 
leaves  Boston,  104;  "Herne  Oaks," 
104;  characteristics  and  tastes, 
104;  supports  Henry  George,  104, 
107;  the  man  described,  105;  his 
family,  105;  his  children,  105;  a 
man  of  the  theatre,  106;  stand 
against  the  theatrical  syndicate, 
106  (note) ;  his  opinion  of  art  and 
the  theatre,  106,  107;  his  belief, 
106,  107,  108;  praised  by  Archer, 
108;  his  style,  108;  quoted,  as  ex 
ample  of  descriptive  powers,  108, 
109;  bibliographical  note,  109, 
110;  description  of  Maine,  109; 
and  Belasco,  116;  and  art,  221; 
"Margaret  Fleming,"  222,  223; 
manuscripts  burned,  283 


Herne,  Mrs.  James  A.  (Katherine 
Corcoran),  95;  her  personal  in 
spiration,  96;  as  Mary  Miller,  98; 
Hamlin  Garland's  opinion  of,  99; 
her  reading,  101;  described  by 
Hamlin  Garland,  101 

Heron,  Matilda,  and  "Camille," 
56 

Herrick,  Professor  Robert,  his  course 
in  drama,  230 

Historical  personages  and  drama, 
46 

Historical  perspective,  value  of,  58 

Hobbs  on  laughter,  255 

Holland,  Joseph,  and  Morrell's 
"Life  of  Holland,"  281 

Hornblow,  Arthur,  mentioned,  313 
(note) 

Howard,  Bronson,  defines  the  Amer 
ican  drama,  12;  as  an  American, 
30;  details,  73-89;  estimate  of, 
73;  broad  point  of  view,  73;  lack 
of  literary  flavor,  74;  position  in 
1870,  74;  and  modern  technique, 
74,  75;  title  of  Dean  of  the  Ameri 
can  drama,  74,  88;  his  influences, 
76;  his  ancestry,  77,  78;  his  father, 
78;  his  name,  78;  his  eye-sight,  79; 
influenced  by  Bayard  Taylor,  79; 
first  literary  inclinations,  79;  life 
in  Detroit,  79;  discusses  drama 
before,  the  Detroit  Prismatic  Club, 
79;  prepares  for  Yale,  79;  Har 
vard  University  address,  79,  87; 
"Fantine,"  80;  on  dramatic  crafts 
manship,  80;  a  "skeleton"  play, 
80,  81;  start  as  a  playwright,  81; 
his  part  in  the  Civil  War,  81;  his 
newspaper  work,  81;  as  a  jour 
nalist,  81,  82;  meets  Charles 
Wyndham,  82;  marries  Miss 
Wyndham,  82;  foreign  models, 
82;  on  theatrical  convention,  83, 
84;  his  feminine  brightness,  84; 
"The  Henrietta,"  84;  "Baron 
Rudolph,"  84;  "Moorcroft,"  84; 
and  American  themes,  84;  "The 
Young  Mrs.  Winthrop,"  84;  pre- 
viousness  in  themes,  85;  accused 
of  plagiarism,  85;  his  repartee, 


INDEX 


333 


86;  society  in  his  drama,  86,  87; 
as  a  craftsman,  87;  illustrates  the 
laws  of  drama,  87,  88 ;  the  younger 
generation,  88;  copyright,  88; 
founds  the  Dramatists  Club,  88; 
bibliographical  list  of  his  plays, 
89  (note);  and  David  Belasco, 
118;  his  library,  279,  280 

Howells,  W.  D.,  and  "The  Gilded 
Age,"  52;  his  farces,  63;  plays  on 
the  stage,  64 ;  and  James  and  Gar 
land,  their  theoretical  views  of 
drama,  64;  his  influence  in  litera 
ture,  90;  quoted,  91 

Hoyt,  Charles,  his  satire,  259;  plays 
of,  259;  his  weakness,  259 

Hudson-Fulton  celebration,  233 

Humor,  American,  243,  258 

Humor  and  Congreve,  256 

Humor  in  American  dramatists,  263 

Humor  vs.  wit,  258 

Humorists,  American,  244;  South 
ern,  51 

Huneker,  James,  the  critic,  305 

Hunter,  Robert,  46 

"Hurricanes,"  82 

Ibsen,  mentioned,  4;  and  women,  8; 
optimism  in  his  pessimism,  8; 
and  Tolstoy,  29 ;  ahead  of  his  time, 
83;  and  Emerson,  221;  and  the 
commonplace,  222;  and  tragedy, 
247 

Idea  and  the  American  drama,  25 

Importations,  continental,  17 

Indian  plays,  44,  45 

Insurgency,  theatrical,  290 

Irving,  Washington,  and  John  How 
ard  Payne,  65,  66 

"Jack  Cade"  and  Forrest,  66 
James,  Henry,  and  drama,  63,  64 
Jefferson,  Joseph,  and  his  ambition, 

165 
Johnston,  Charles,  defines  American 

humor,  258 

Jones,  Henry  Arthur,  why  an  Eng 
lish  dramatist,  11 ;  attitude  toward 
literature  and  drama,  64,  65;  on 


realism,  224;  as  a  dramatic  critic, 
308 

Jones,  J.  S.,  "The  People's  Lawyer" 
quoted,  50 

Kant  on  laughter,  257 

Katharsis,  the,  245 

Keene,  Laura,  56 

Kester,  Paul,  and  "Don  Quixote," 
252 

Kinetoscope,  theatre,  200-214;  man 
agement  of  the,  200;  problem  of 
the,  200,  202;  manager  of,  201; 
acting,  201;  length  of  films,  201; 
audiences,  202;  institutional  use 
of  the,  202;  a  wise  manager,  204; 
economics  of  the,  204;  defects 
in  the  performances,  204;  the 
"chaser,"  205;  the  press-agent, 
205;  the  Trust,  205;  the  Union, 
206;  timely  element  in  films,  206; 
reporter,  206;  Passion  Play,  206; 
the  film  "route,"  207;  French 
actors,  207 ;  conditions  with  Amer 
ican  dramatists,  207;  French 
dramatists,  207,  208;  copyright, 
208;  "The  Music  Master,"  208; 
eye-strain,  210;  improvements, 
210;  dangers  in  taking  pictures, 
211;  dramatizations,  212;  panto 
mime,  212 

Klein,  Charles,  "The  Lion  and  the 
Mouse,"  11;  mentioned,  28;  his 
plays,  33 ;  quoted  regarding  Ameri 
can  drama,  33-35;  an  independ 
ent  manager,  293 

Kotzebue,  47 

Kremer,  Theodore,  melodramatic 
formula  of,  195,  196;  the  Clyde 
Fitch  of  melodrama,  196 

Lamb,  Charles,  on  tragedy,  219;  on 

comedy,  257 
Laughter,  value  of,  255;  defined  by 

Hobbs,    255;    defined    by    Kant, 

257 

Le  Bon  and  the  crowd,  227,  228 
Legitimate  drama,  the  term,  190 
"Les  Mis6rables,"  first  American 

edition  of,  79 


334 


INDEX 


Library,  a  general,  and  the  drama, 
279;  private,  and  the  drama,  280; 
specializing  in  drama,  281 

Librettists,  popular,  240 

Lighting,  stage,  use  and  misuse  of, 
132,  133 

Literary  and  closet-drama,  our, 
59-72 

Literature  and  drama,  61,  62,  301; 
and  the  soil,  90;  individualistic 
and  collectivistic  tendencies  in, 
3;  vitality  and  nationality  in,  5 

Literature,  American,  and  American 
characteristics,  51;  Henry  Arthur 
Jones  on,  and  drama,  65 

Local,  danger  of  the,  179 

Local  sense,  and  Clyde  Fitch,  169- 
185 

Local  touches,  53 

Locality,  and  life,  25;  and  the  drama, 
298,  299;  sense  of,  and  the  Ameri 
can  dramatist,  175 

Longfellow,  dramas,  63;  opinion  of 
drama,  63;  on  poetry  and  prose, 
63 

"Lord  Chumley,"  120 

Lowell  and  the  mystic,  220 

Lyceum  Theatre  and  Steele  Mac- 
kaye,  150 

Macdowell  Drama  Fellowship,  230 
(note) 

Mackaye,  Percy,  "Sappho  and 
Phaon"  and  "Mater,"  11;  "The 
Scarecrow,"  224;  "The  Canter 
bury  Pilgrims,"  232;  and  the 
Comic  Spirit,  252;  and  the  com 
mercial  manager,  268;  and  drama, 
300;  and  his  father,  135,  153;  and 
W.  C.  De  Mille,  136,  137;  and 
Stephen  Phillips,  137;  humor  and 
cynicism,  138;  the  poet,  138;  bio 
graphical  data,  138  (note) ;  plays, 
138  (note),  139;  ideas  on  democ 
racy,  138,  141;  his  lectures,  139; 
critic  of  the  theatre,  139,  140,  141 

Mackaye,  Steele,  and  his  son,  135- 
153;  and  De  Mille,  135;  con 
temporary  dramatic  authorship, 
137;  early  record  of,  141;  family 


of,  141;  lectures  on  Delsarte,  142; 
the  Civil  War,  142;  on  the  actor, 
142;  exponent  of  Delsarte,  142, 
143;  Edwin  Forrest,  143;  as 
manager,  143;  his  rashness,  143, 
144;  collaborates  with  Tom 
Taylor,  144;  begins  to  dramatize 
"Silas  Marner,"  144;  career  as 
actor,  144;  as  Hamlet,  145;  his 
dramatic  training,  145;  his  plays, 
145,  146;  supported  by  Nym 
Crinkle,  145,  149;  his  influences, 
146;  "Won  at  Last"  analyzed  by 
acts,  146;  the  theatre  of  his  day, 
146;  and  the  Mallorys,  147; 
"Hazel  Kirke,"  147;  opinion  of 
the  dramatist,  147,  148;  the  phi 
losopher,  148,  150;  theatricalism, 
148,  149;  origin  of  "Anarchy," 
149;  opinions  on  capital  and  labor, 
149;  on  democracy,  149;  at  the 
Lyceum  Theatre,  150;  Columbian 
spectacle  analyzed,  150,  151; 
Spectatorium  analyzed,  151,  152; 
and  his  son,  153;  family,  153 
(note) 

Macready  and  sensationalism,  190 

Madison  Square  Theatre,  and  Be- 
lasco,  117;  and  Henry  C.  De 
Mille,  118;  "milk  and  water" 
drama  of,  118;  the  theatre,  118, 
136;  Daniel  Frohman  and  Frank 
lin  Sargent,  136 

Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  and  Lamb, 
219;  unseen  forces,  219;  on  the 
unexpressed,  223;  and  the  Greeks, 
247;  quoted  on  the  tragical  in 
daily  life,  247;  on  the  tragic  spirit, 
248;  "The  Life  of  the  Bee,"  248; 
"The  Blind,"  248 

Mallory  Brothers,  the,  engage  Be- 
lasco,  117;  criticized,  136,  147 

Manager,  the  theatrical,  and  reno 
vation,  40,  41 

Managers,  the  American,  56;  Eng 
lish,  and  Boucicault,  76 

Managerial  prejudice,  former,  and 
American  drama,  22 

Mansfield,  Richard,  his  r61es,  40; 
and  Moliere,  253 


INDEX 


335 


Matthews,  Brander,  quoted,  49,  60, 
61,  62;  and  the  closet-drama,  72; 
his  course  in  drama,  230  (note) ;  on 
the  physical  outlines  of  the  theatre, 
231;  defines  comedy  and  tragedy, 
254 

Mechanical  drama,  203 

Melodrama,  and  human  appeal,  32; 
changes  in  American,  32 ;  concern 
ing,  186-199;  early  types,  186; 
the  beginning  of,  186;  the  term, 
186,  188;  and  romanticism,  187; 
advertising,  187;  and  the  Radcliffe 
School,  188;  in  England,  188; 

'  Schlegel  on,  188;  Belasco,  189, 
198;  realism,  189;  Walkley  on, 
189;  miracle  plays,  189;  charac 
teristics  of,  189;  reaction  in,  190; 
"Macbeth,"  190;  wild  species, 
190;  the  hairline  of,  191;  Bouci- 
cault,  191;  some  famous,  191; 
accentuation  in,  191;  Owen  Davis 
on,  192-194;  Owen  Davis  on 
audiences,  194;  writers  of,  196 
(note);  how  to  write,  197;  con 
ventions  of,  197;  bibliography, 
198,  199 

Meredith,  George,  on  comedy,  257 

"Metamora"  and  Forrest,  66 

Mitchell,  Langdon,  "The  New  York 
Idea,"  55;  "Becky  Sharp,"  271 

Moliere  and  the  Comic  Spirit,  256 

Moody,  William  Vaughn,  and  "The 
Great  Divide,"  11,  24,  224,  313; 
his  plays,  218 

Morality,  imported,  26 

Moving-picture,  educational  possi 
bilities  of  the,  211;  harmful  to  the 
theatre,  214 

Mowatt,  Mrs.,  and  contemporary 
drama,  53;  "Fashion,"  53 

"Muck-raking"  and  "star-gazing," 
8 

Music  and  drama,  relation  of,  187 

Musical  comedy  and  George  V. 
Hobart,  240 

National  Theatre,  what  is  a,  272 
Nationality   and   fundamental   dra 
matic  principles,  5 


Newspaper  dramatists,  313 

New  Theatre,  over-size  of,  111;  re 
sults  of,  264;  idea  of,  264;  opening 
of,  265;  concern  of,  265;  object  of 
the  Directors,  265;  erection  of, 
266;  name  of,  266;  prejudice 
against,  269;  initial  period,  270; 
National  Art  Theatre  Society  and 
its  Board,  270;  position  in  theat 
rical  activity,  270;  and  the  Ameri 
can  dramatist,  270;  and  English 
actors,  271;  its  "stars,"  271;  in 
tellectual  ground  for  a,  271,  272; 
mistakes  of  the,  272;  repertory, 
272;  and  the  people,  272;  hiatus, 
273;  building  designed  by  Con 
ned,  273;  first  year,  273;  problems 
of,  274;  new  building,  274;  finan 
cial  loss,  274;  situation,  274  (note) ; 
Literary  Director,  275;  Shake 
spearean  productions,  275;  other 
productions,  275 

New  York,  in  1842,  53;  theatres  in 
1882,  112;  theatrical  conditions 
in  1882,  117;  as  a  theatre  centre, 
273;  Public  Library  and  drama, 
281 

Nickelodeon,  audiences,  203;  press- 
agent  of,  205;  problems  of  the 
manager,  209;  stage-managing, 
213;  inspection  of  managers,  209; 
and  the  Children's  Court,  211;  the 
police,  211;  performance  of  "Mac 
beth,"  213;  police  on  Shakespeare, 
213 

Novel-writing  vs.  playwriting,  170, 
171 

Page,  Curtis  Hidden,  translation  of 

Moliere,  253 
Pageantry,  234 
Pageant-master  vs.  stage  director, 

236 
Palmer,   A.    M.,    on   the   American 

drama,    56;    his   stock   company, 

56;  and  the  American  drama,  77 
Parker,  Lottie  Blair,   "Way  Down 

East,"  37 
"Pass,"    attractions    of    the,    295; 

evils  of  the,  303 


336 


INDEX 


Paulding,  James  K.,  "The  Lion  of 
the  West,"  50 

Payne,  John  Howard,  66 

Peabody,  Josephine  Preston  (Mrs. 
Marks),  and  "The  Piper,"  217, 
218. 

Phonograph  and  the  Virginia  moun 
tains,  203;  tribal  songs,  203  (note) . 

Pinero,  A.  WM  mentioned,  4;  inti 
macy  of  "Trelawney  of  the 
'Wells,'"  111;  and  Clyde  Fitch, 
170,  171 

Play  mounting,  155,  156,  157 

Play  rehearsed,  the,  158 

Plays,  extensive  writing  of,  298 

Playwrights,  need  for  a  school  of 
American,  25;  the  American,  169; 
the  newspaper,  170 

Playwriting,  elements  in,  169,  313 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  on  modern  drama, 
54;  Mrs.  Mowatt's  "Fashion," 
54,  55 

Poel,  William,  230 

Poetry  of  prose,  226 

Pollock,  Channing,  dramatization 
of  "The  Pit"  quoted,  16 

Potter,  Paul  M.,  on  dramatization, 
242 

Power,  Tyrone  (1st),  and  Hoboken, 
178 

Press-agent,  295,  296;  superiority  of 
the,  over  the  dramatic  critic,  304, 
305 ;  authority  of  the,  309 ;  stories, 
309,  310;  the  old  vs.  the  new,  310; 
organized  work,  310 

Proctor  and  Keith,  240 

Prompt  copies,  155 

Properties  and  effects,  158,  159 

Public,  educating  the,  297;  reading, 
and  the  theatre,  19 

Realism,  91 

Regeneration  and  disintegration  of 
the  theatre,  288-302 

Rehearsals,  128 

Renovation  of  past  theatre  suc 
cesses,  39,  41 

Repertory  companies,  37 

Research,  problems  of,  277,  278 

Revivals,  234;  significance  of,  229 


Revolutionary  dramas,  45 
Romanticism  and  melodrama,  187 
"Rose  of  the  Rancho,  The,"  and  its 
"light  plot,"  129-132 

Sargent,  Franklin,  and  Belasco,  120 
Satire,  American  social,  52 
Scenery  and  the  theatre,  297 
Scenes  a  faire  (Sarcey) ,  20 
Scenic  effect,  127 
Schlegel  and  melodrama,  188 
"School  for  Scandal,"  179 
Sensationalism,  conventional,  196 
Shakespeare,  Elizabethan  spirit  in, 

4;  influence  of,  61;  and  comedy, 

256 

Shaw,    George  Bernard,  on   Shake 
speare,  224;  as  a  dramatic  critic, 

308 
Sheldon,  Edward,  230  (note);  "The 

Nigger,"  275 
"Shore  Acres"  and  Henry  George, 

97 

Situation,  sense  of,  169 
Slave,    the    African,    in    American 

drama,  46 
Smith,    Charles    Sprague,    and    the 

People's  Institute,  237 
Smith,  Harry  B.,  defines  American 

drama,  13 

Smith,  Richard  Penn,  66 
South,  the,  and  drama,  42 
Stadium,  a,  in  New  York,  235,  236 
Stage  designs,  156,  157;  elements  in 

lighting,    129;    masses,   157;  idea 

behind  setting,  158 
Stock  companies,  value  of,  38,  268, 

269;  plays,  268,  269  (note) 
Stoddard,      Richard      Henry,      on 

Boker's  dramas,  70 
Stone  John  Augustus,  66;  plays  of, 

66  (note) 
Style,  grandiloquent,  of  drama  after 

1830,  59;  and  drama,  62,  63 
Sudermann  mentioned,  4 
Sunlight,  moonlight,  and  footlight, 

227-238 
Switchboard,  David  Belasco  and  the 

psychology  of  the,  111,  125;  value 

of  the,  124;  use  of  the,  126 


INDEX 


337 


Syndicate,  the  theatrical,  290;  evils 
of  the,  293 

Tarkington,  Booth,  and  the  Ameri 
can  spirit,  15 

Taste,  early  American  theatrical,  42 

Taylor,  Tom,  and  the  American 
type,  51;  Asa  Trenchard,  86;  and 
Steele  Mackaye,  144 

Terms,  dramatic,  244 

Theatre,  commercialism  of,  1,  289; 
education  of  audiences,  2;  Ameri 
can  manager,  2;  aloofness  of,  2; 
occasional  poet  of  the,  65;  local 
manners  and  the,  73 ;  sense  of  the, 
124;  amusement  and  the,  164; 
the  modern,  216;  introspection 
and  the,  219;  worn-out  models  of 
the,  219;  human  need  in  the,  227; 
and  the  crowd,  227  (note),  231, 
232;  civic  thought  and  the,  228; 
communal  feeling  in  the,  232; 
natural  resources  of  the,  234,  238; 
out-of-doors,  234;  civic,  237; 
National  or  New,  264-276;  as  a 
deprovincializing  force,  266;  dis 
integration  and  regeneration  of 
the,  288-302;  manager  as  a  busi 
ness  man,  289;  public  verdict  in 
the,  291;  free-trade,  292;  en 
dowment,  292;  publicity,  294; 
manager  and  his  press-representa 
tive,  294;  imagination,  296,  297; 
scenery,  297;  hero-worship,  297; 
poetic  drama,  299;  Ideas  in,  299; 
literary  man  in  the,  300 

Theatrical  Clearing-House,  294 

Theatrical  illusion,  dangers  of  de 
stroying,  296 

Theatrical  interest,  centering  of, 
288 

Theatrical  manager,  the,  268 

Theatrical  "open  door,"  295 

Theatrical  organization,  296 

Theatrical  profits,  300 

Theatrical  Syndicate,  bibliography, 
122  (note);  work  of,  267;  menace 
of  the,  267 

Theatrical  Trust,  evils  of  the,  291; 
excellence  of,  294 


Thomas,  Augustus,  defines  American 
drama,  12,  13;  defect  in,  13;  "The 
Witching  Hour,"  83;  at  rehearsal, 
157;  career,  159-163;  early  at 
tempts,  159;  as  reporter,  160;  his 
French  technique,  160;  "Ala 
bama,"  160;  "In  'Mizzoura,'" 
160;  "Arizona,"  160;  early  career, 
160;  broad  comedy,  160;  three 
plays  of  telepathy,  161;  debut  as 
a  dramatist,  161;  list  of  plays,  161 
(note);  "Alabama,"  162;  Henry 
Watterson  on  "Alabama,"  162; 
opinion  of  "Arizona,"  162;  value 
of  the  moment,  162;  opinion  of 
the  theatre's  province,  162;  "As 
a  Man  Thinks,"  162,  163;  his 
growth,  163;  and  the  newspaper, 
170;  division  of  the  United  States, 
176 

Thompson,  Denman,  102  (note) 

Thorndike,  Professor  Ashley,  and 
"Tragedy,"  244;  on  tragedy, 
244 

Tragedy,  lofty,  60;  and  comedy, 
243,  244;  Aristotle  on,  245;  and 
the  Tragic  Spirit,  245;  and 
America,  246;  and  nationality, 
246;  types  of,  246;  and  form,  249; 
new  form  of,  250;  and  the  Ameri 
can  people,  250;  American  re 
sponse  to,  250;  and  comedy,  de 
fined  by  Matthews,  254 

Tragical,  the,  in  daily  life,  247 

Tragic  Spirit,  the,  244;  defined,  248, 
249;  comedies  containing  the, 
250 

Trust,  the  Theatrical,  and  Belasco, 
121,  122;  excellence  of  the,  290; 
opposition  of  the,  290;  methods 
against  the  insurgents,  291;  and 
the  "open  door,"  291,  292;  and 
the  actor,  292 

Tully,  Richard  Walton,  "The  Rose 
of  the  Rancho,"  129-132 

Twain,  Mark,  "The  Gilded  Age," 
39 

Tyler,  Royall,  48 

Type,  the  American,  39,  49,  50 


338 


INDEX 


"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  46 

Vaudeville,  241;  and  the  actor,  241, 

242;  power  of,  295 
Vocero,  the  tribal,  227 

Wallack  galaxy,  the,  56;  Lester,  56; 
J.  W.,  encourages  Willis,  60; 
Lester,  and  the  American  drama, 
76,  77 

Walter,  Eugene,  "The  Easiest 
Way,"  8,  313 

Warren,  Mercy,  as  a  dramatist,  43 

Washington,  George,  as  a  theatre 
goer,  43 

Weber  and  Fields  vs.  Aristophanes, 
37 


Well-made  play,  the,  154 

Wendell,  Professor  Barrett,  neglect 
of  American  drama,  282 

Williamsburg  theatre,  the,  42 

Willis,  N.  P.,  as  a  dramatist,  60,  61; 
and  Forrest,  67 

Wister,  Owen,  and  America,  14,  15 

Women  dramatists,  312 

Woods,  A.  H.,  producer  of  melo 
dramas,  195 

Yale  students  and  early  American 
drama,  44 ;  Dramatic  Association, 
The,  230 

Zangwill,  Israel,  and  "The  Melting 
Pot,"  225 


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